


Death's Apprentice

by GoodluckPancake



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, Burgers - Freeform, Death!Dean, Drinking, Fairies, Horror ish, M/M, Minor Character Death, Swearing and whatnot, a little angsty, depictions of violence, eventual destiel, honestly though like half of the characters i've introduced are dead to start with so really, hopefully, or even hella angsty, slightly dark, this may be upgraded to pretty angsty
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-08-18
Updated: 2014-02-22
Packaged: 2017-12-23 21:51:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 24,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/931473
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GoodluckPancake/pseuds/GoodluckPancake
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean is Death's apprentice. Has been for as long as he can remember, which to be fair, isn't that long. But when things start going wrong, the wrong people start dying and the right people start, well, coming back, Death is no where to be found and Dean finds himself fighting against something much more powerful than anything he could imagine. And amidst it all a goddamn angel, who seems just as set on finding out about Deans past as Dean is on avoiding it.<br/>Damn. This is gonna be a hell of a week.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Run

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah... so this is kind of my first actual fanfiction. I saw an abundant lack of death!dean and thought 'No. This will not do!' Please enjoy! Also note I don't think Cas will come in until the second or third chapter, so if you're looking for a quickie shot of Destiel this probably isn't what you're after. You never know though!

Dean doesn’t remember much from when he was alive. He knows he’d had a brother, Sammy, who was too tall and too smart for his own good, and that he loved more than everything and everyone else in the entire world combined. It made him sad when he thought about it, but Dean doesn’t know if that was things left unsaid, or how he’d died or if he just misses the sasquatch. He doesn’t remember much else; sometimes he’d get flashes of a beautiful blonde woman who smelled like warm apple pie and looked at him with love in her eyes, or of a drunken man with salt and pepper hair and grief in his heart.

Dean’s head jerks up at the crash that sounds to his right. It’s time. He pushes off of the brickwork of the old hardware store and walks calmly to the end of the alley. There’s a man there, holding a woman against the wall. Dean grimaces. Dammit. Looks like tonight is really gonna suck. The man is whispering in her ear, and although Dean can’t hear the words, the lecherous tone and the woman’s terror are enough to bring the point home. Dean turns away, fists clenching. He briefly considers going corporal and breaking up this party of all the wrong kinds, but he’s been going long enough to know that that won’t help her. Whoever’s gonna die will die and he’d rather not have to gank anyone when it isn’t their time, just because he didn’t have the balls to accept that the world is a pretty damn fucked up place, and that even when you hold the reins on who lives and dies there ain’t much you can do to change it. He’s just hoping that it’ll be over quick, for everyones sake, when he hears a pained gasp. He turns, sees the knife embedded in the man’s chest, his blood seeping through the dark clothes. He collapses and Dean grins as he touches the guy’s chest, killing him. He resists the urge to watch the man suffer; the night is getting on and he’s got a lot more to do before he can call it a day.

“You go sister,” he breathes to the woman, her eyes wide at the blood on her hands. Her head jerks up, and for a second he thinks she can see him. But her eyes pass straight through him and Dean turns his attention to the dead douchebag standing behind him.

“Wha-what-I, I’m _dead?_ ” he stammers and Dean really doesn’t have the patience to answer any of his questions.

“Yep. And serves you right too, asshole.” Dean can’t help himself; he socks the guy right in the nose. While the guy stumbles around swearing Dean grabs his shoulder and sucks the soul in. Dean grimaces as the man’s life, his _memories_ , all crash into his head. Everything from the day he was born to 5 minutes ago when he thought it would be a great idea to follow a (seemingly) harmless chick and corner her in an alley for what the dick had thought of as ‘fun time’, though the woman had obviously disagreed.

“Yeah, that one’s definitely going downstairs.” Dean grinds out through a whole life worth of emotions from someone who was one nasty motherfucker if Dean does say so himself. He rubs his face, straightening up when he hears a voice behind him;

“Dean.”

Deans spine automatically stiffens, his posture becoming that of a soldier in 0.2 seconds. He turns, notices vaguely that the girl is gone. His boss now stands in the foot of the alley, his same black suit and coat in place, though the tie is new, a different bluer-grey that the last one. Death leans lazily on the cane Dean knows he doesn’t need despite his aged appearance. Tessa stands a little behind him; she seems to be his info source on all things Dean nowadays. Dean considers shooting her a wink, but after what he just almost witnessed it doesn’t seem right. Besides, she looks more serious than usual, if that’s even possible. He turns his eyes to back to his boss.

Dean had been working for Death for the entirety of his afterlife. That could have been 2 weeks or 100 years. Time was hard to hold onto when you experienced the life span of at least 30 people a day. Dean still wasn’t sure why Death chose him. There were plenty of smarter, stronger, more morally numb mooks out there who didn’t have as many anger issues and didn’t talk back as much who would probably jump at the chance to be Deaths apprentice. Or so he assumes. It had taken him a while to get a hang of the whole killing people thing. The first few days were hell. He learned the hard way that you couldn’t just pick and choose who to kill, and that the people you took wouldn’t always be sweaty-heart attack victims and foolish criminals. Sometimes it was good people. Sometimes it was kids. And if you didn’t do it then more good people and kids and innocents would just die until you did. It took him even longer to get a hang of the memories thing. He didn’t think he’d ever really get used to it. Maybe that’s what made Death so intimidating. He’d seen so much, and knowledge showed in his eyes, his tone, his posture. He’s a million times older than the universe itself.

“Hey there chief,” Dean says, his faux casual tone the most relaxed thing in the space around them. “I just finished up here, was gonna take off-”

“We need,” a dramatic breath (the bastard loved his drama) “to talk, Dean.” Eyes the colour of stale espresso meet Dean’s own. He swallows hard and pulls up a shaking grin.

“What, you breakin’ up with me? Sir.” The dual unamused and exasperated looks he receives has him adding the status, his grin pulling away, lips pushed together and brows lowered as he shuffles awkwardly.

As Death approaches him Dean feels a rising panic start to build. Tessa stays behind and Dean glances back at her. Her normally impassive face is tight with worry and that alone is enough to freak him the fuck out. He looks at Death, standing in front of him now and despite the considerable height advantage Dean has, he feels like an ant, even more so than usual. They stand there for a moment before Death continues past him stating simply;

“Walk with me.”

Dean’s footsteps are too loud in the wake of the soft patter of Death’s feet and the slightly menacing knock of his cane. They walk until they hit the end of the alley. Death only looks back once and it’s not at Dean but Tessa, whose back is turned now, guarding them. Dean doesn’t know what from, but the fact that it’s even needed (they’re both invisible, to humans anyway, and his… employer so to speak –it’s not like Dean gets paid- is probably the most powerful being in the entire universe, though God might have a few words to say about that.) means that shit just got real.

“What’s this all about.” It’s not a question. “It’s obviously not just something stupid I’ve done.” Now that Dean sees how serious this really is he’s all business, a soldier ready to fight. It’s an odd aspect of his personality. Sometimes he thinks about it, wonders if it has something to do with what he did in his alive life, but usually he just ignores it. That’s behind him now, and there’s no turning back. What he does know is that he’s a damn good fighter, with or without magic soul-sucking mumbo-jumbo.

Death reaches into his pocket and pulls out an envelope. It’s starting to yellow and a little crumpled, sealed with wax. He hands it to Dean.

“Don’t open it.” He commands as Dean flips it over. There’s a strange round bulge in it that rattles a little when he moves it.

“What is it?”

“It doesn’t matter. You’ll know when you need to.” Death stares at him gravely. “Protect it with your life. Now listen, Dean,” He leans in conspiratively, and Dean looks up sharply from his intense study of the package.

“There’s going to be a bit of trouble soon. Very, very soon.” He adds when Dean opens his mouth. “Don’t even try to interrupt. It’s rude and we don’t have much time. Right, so I’m going to handle things, I just need you to lay low. Keep doing what you’re doing, no foolishness. And watch that. Keep it with you, at. All. Times. Understood?” He waits until Dean nods before he takes a step back, pushing his free hand into his pocket as he strolls back towards Tessa. He pauses half way and calls back over his shoulder;

“Oh, and Dean?”

“Yeah?” Dean asks, slipping the envelope into the inside pocket of his leather coat.

“Run.”

And it’s at that point that the brick wall behind him explodes.

 


	2. Death is the Beginning of Your Troubles

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean smirks at the guy’s bewildered expression as she starts to dab at his shirt, his trench coat, his crotch, with a napkin. Oldest, most blatantly obvious trick in the book, and the poor sucker can’t even see it. Dean’s still snickering when the dude looks up. Straight into Deans eyes. Dean feels a chill sweep through his bones. The guy can see him. He can see Dean. Shit. Shit shit shit.

Dean runs. He runs like the hounds of hell themselves are after his ass, and boy that was an experience he never intended to repeat (moral of that story; don’t show up at work drunk, especially when your job involves the dead). But at least then he knew what was behind him. Now he doesn’t even risk looking back; if whatever it is scares Death, he doesn’t want to know. His breath huffs out in steam and his arms and legs pump as he beats his feet against the footpath. The Thing behind him is getting close now; he can hear sharp talons clicking right on his heels. Dean makes a hard left into another Russian backstreet, turning just before it’s too late. It falls back a little, and he keeps zig-zagging, taking random streets when he can. Finally he ducks into a seedy bar, its broken neon lighting proclaiming “The Pit” in Russian. Not exactly the most comforting title but it’s still better than being hunted. He slips inside quickly. No-one takes notice of his arrival and it takes him a moment to remember that they can’t see him, which is probably for the best because his hair is full of brick dust and that’s not really something he can be bothered lying about right now. Still, he takes a seat at the bar, wiping the sweat and dust out of his eyes and plans his next move. He’s pretty sure he’s lost that thing, and even if that’s only temporary, he doesn’t think it’ll look for him in this shit hole, surrounded by ‘breathers’ as some of the more douchey Reapers (like that asshole, Hayden) referred to them. None of them liked him much besides Tessa, and even then it was more of a tolerance. Probably because, unlike them, he used to be human. Dean doesn’t know if they’re envious or just racist or what their deal is really. He doesn’t know how or why Death chose him out of not only all of the humans but the Reapers too, for… what? This? To be his successor? To take the Hobbits to fucking Isengard? Aah this is too much. Dean reaches for the abandoned beer on the counter, swearing when his hand passes straight through it. Dammit! He rests his head in his hands, pressing the heel of his hands against his closed eyes until there’s an acid trip of galaxy swirls behind his eyelids. Suddenly he remembers the package, pulling it out, looking at it properly now that the light is a little better. The wax seal isn’t from Deaths horseman ring, but something else. It’s kinda like the old fashioned signet rings with house crests on them, but it seems more cryptic somehow. There are strange little symbols in it that Dean can’t read but that he recognizes, that frustrating _almost_ tickling at the back of his mind. He flips it over. There are words there on the other side that he didn’t see before, spindly handwriting written with long dry ink. Its messy and a little water smeared, but he thinks he can make out:

  _Death is the beginning of all of your troubles_

Hell fucking yeah he is, Dean thinks. There are a few lines under that which are too blurred for him to make out, but somehow he doesn’t think he’d be able to decipher them even if they hadn’t been put through the long-cycle. Being cryptic is one of Deaths favourite pastimes, right next to eating fast food (‘The good, diner kind. None of that mass produced garbage.’), and making Dean feel like an insect. Dean feels the contents of his mystery package again; when he shakes it the rattle’s still there, though now he thinks about it sounds like fine chains clinking against each other. The lump is there, bigger and thicker than a coin and round. When he holds it to his ear there’s a clicking noise. A clock maybe? This is getting nowhere. He briefly considers opening it, but the immediate drowning feeling of dread that pours over him at the mere thought puts him off. Damn, Death musta hexed the thing. Great, just what he needed. Deans slips the thing back into his pocket, wondering what he’s supposed to do now. Well, Death did say to stick to his job. So that’s what he’ll do. He reaches for the book in his other pocket.

Dean doesn’t get to decide who to kill. If he did, he thinks the world would be a much better place than it is, though everyone thinks that. But he’s got his orders. Death was vague about who actually decided who and when and where, going off on a tangent about fate and the fleetingness of mortals as he did when he didn’t want to answer Deans questions. All he really knows is that the names show up in his book, and when he offs them they get crossed out. Simple. And kinda mysterious, but whatever. He flips it open, flicking to the page he’s up to then freezes. When he’d left to kill that Russian bastard there had been 10, 20 names left to go. Now they’d all been crossed. His mind roils. Were they dead? Was there, what, a technical error? What the hell was going on?

 A loud crash from the other end of the bar has his head shooting up. His shoulders relax when he sees that it’s just a blonde woman’s drink, spilled on a very uncomfortable looking man. Dean smirks at the guy’s bewildered expression as she starts to dab at his shirt, his trench coat, his crotch, with a napkin. Oldest, most blatantly obvious trick in the book, and the poor sucker can’t even see it. Dean’s still snickering when the dude looks up. Straight into Deans eyes. Dean feels a chill sweep through his bones. The guy can see him. He can see Dean. _Shit. Shit shit shit_.

Dean practically leaps up from his chair, trying to look like another patron, one which everyone else can most certainly see and is totally not an intangible Reaper/human hybrid trained by Death himself. He tries not to run as he heads towards the bathroom, managing to walk in and close the door before freaking out. The room is cold and filthy, but Dean doesn’t notice. He grips the sink and stares at the shattered mirror, willing himself to calm down. If he calms down, he can teleport out. Death can do it whenever he damn well pleases, but he’s had about a hundred billion years more practise than Dean has. Plus he’s Death. If Dean hadn’t seen the absolute joy on Deaths face as he bit into a piece of pizza-pie, or slurped on a milkshake, then he never would have believed the guy even had emotions.

Dean closes his eyes and thinks of where he wants to go. He focuses, gripping the sink till his hands go white. There’s a loud crack and the feel of porcelain coming lose in his hands and when he opens his eyes in shock, he’s home, with two handfuls of ceramic. He drops them, sighing in relief, but he doesn’t let himself relax, doing a perimeter check, starting with the salt lines on the doors and windows. He put it there when he realised it kept out (most of) the nasties that thought it would be a fun idea to go after Death’s padawan, but soon he’d found that because his door opened inwards and he mostly teleported in and out, it let him know when anyone had busted in. He makes sure everything is in its place, from the beer in the fridge (that Reaper bastard Hayden likes to steal his booze) to the knives under his mattress. It’s only after he’s sure that no-one’s been in that Dean releases the tension holding in his shoulders.

His apartment isn’t much. Technically, it’s too earthquake damaged to inhabit, but since Dean’s already dead, he figures that’s not much of an issue. He managed to rig up some power, for his fridge and the champion for the-TV-with-the-worst-reception-in-the-history-of-forever. He’s got a shitty off-the-side-of-the-road couch and a mattress without any legs. Other than that there’s a table with two chairs (he still wasn’t sure why he had both of them; something had made him hopeful, but now it just sat there, drowned in beer bottles and books full of lore) and a few cupboards.

“Home, sweet home,” Dean breathes collapsing on the couch. He flips on the TV, flicking through channels until he finds some Spanish drama or another. It’s one of his favourites, he realizes with a grin. And a marathon too. So he stays there until he falls asleep, almost letting himself pretend that what happened today wasn’t fucking weird, even by his standards.


	3. What's Dead Should Stay Dead (Mostly)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean would bet anything that he killed her not a month ago. He flips his book open with a frown, finds her name; Lisa Braeden. It’s uncrossed, sitting there in its slanted cursive. With a frown he turns the pages back, skimming as he goes. When he gets to the spot where he’s almost sure her name should be, there’s nothing. No name, crossed or uncrossed; just a blank white space.

“Dean.”

The word is a ragged gasp, and Dean finds himself pulling his gun from the back of his jeans before he recognizes Tessa, though it’s a different sight than he’s used to. He glances at the pistol in his hands, realising with a vague jolt that he had fallen asleep with it loaded, albeit safety on, as he rushes towards Tessa, catching her before she falls. She’s covered in dirt, her pale greeny shirt torn and streaked with blood. Her long black coat’s shredded too, and though Dean can’t see any visible cuts on her, knowing the healing rate of Reaper’s, that doesn’t mean anything.

“Tess!” He shouts, scooping her into his arms bridal style. He makes the snap decision to lay her on the couch rather than the mattress; they’re both pretty filthy but the couch has less books on it and its closer, plus putting the semi-conscious Reaper on his bed just seems skeezy. Her eyes are flickering, as if she’s struggling to keep them open.

“What happened?” He asks, panicked. He’d seen both her and Death ‘port out, their abilities in that regard both much stronger than his own.

“We,” gasp, “circled back.” Tess pants as if reading his mind. “Made it look,” gasp “like an accident. Threw them off you.” Dean frowns. This is his fault?

“What-why”

“Just a soldier, Dean.” Tessa smirks a little, though it quickly turns to a pained grimace. “You got your orders,” gasp “I got mine.” Rage suddenly fills Dean’s veins;

“Death let this happen to you?”

Pained laughter. “Not hardly,” gasp, “He went with them voluntarily.” Dean’s eyes bulge.

“ **What?** ”

“Didn’t make it easy for him,” gasp, “tried to stop him. Take them all myself.” Gasp, “Blacked out. When I woke up, they were gone.” Gasp, “Don’t know where they took him.”

Dean is silent at that. Finally he says in a small voice, “So much for following orders.”

 Tess peeks at him through her drooping lids. “Who’d have thought we’d see the day?” A small, gaspy chuckle. “You, following orders better than me? You’re rubbing off on me.” Coughs suddenly rack her body and Dean swoops over to her like a mother hen. She seems smaller like this, all vulnerable and curled in on herself. Her power normally takes up so much more space, and combined with her stoic, serious personality, Tess is an imposing presence. But now, with blood on her face, hands shaky, eyes desperate and tired and almost scared, she looks… almost human.

“What can I do?”

She shakes her head. “Just juiced out. I have to sleep it off.” A pause, not a gasp. [That’s an improvement at least, Dean thinks.] “Till then I’m pretty much human.” She sounds so fragile.

“Okay.” He gets up, picks the blanket off of his shoddy mattress bed, and gives it a sniff to make sure it’s not too filthy before tossing it over Tessa’s shivering body. She clutches at the edges, wrapping herself up tightly as she gives a tiny, grateful smile. Dean makes a move to shut the tv off but she gives her head a gentle shake as her eyes drift shut so instead he just stands there awkwardly as her breaths deepens, finally evening out as she falls into the clutches of sleep.

He rakes his hand through his hair in frustration. Now even Deaths out of the game? What the hell man? Pacing a little, he pats the pockets of his coat, making sure everything is still there, hasn’t fallen down the back of the couch while he slept. The book’s there. So is that damned envelope. Dean feels like it’s the blame for all of this, even though he knows deep down that’s unreasonable; if Death had given it to him before he’d given up, god only knew what  He pulls it out with a glare, about to slam it on the table when Deaths voice rings in his head;

_‘Keep doing what you’re doing, no foolishness. And watch that. Keep it with you, at all times. Understood?’_

His hand stops just before it hits the table, and he slips it back into his pocket, swearing as he makes his way to the fridge, grabbing a cold one, popping the lid and drinking almost half of it in one go. Wearily, he sinks into his one empty chair. The hand not gripped tightly around his beer hovers by his book-pocket as he takes another swig. As he sets the bottle back on the table with a too-loud clack he finally reaches into his coat, pulling out the small black book. He stares at it a moment, smoothing down the cover. It feels weird just to keep on with his work, knowing there’s a force out there that has Death, that almost took out Tessa. But his job isn’t normal anyway so Dean opens the cover. Last night’s names are still crossed, just like they’re meant to be, and there’s a page of new names much to Dean’s relief. The sun is shining, the birds are singing and people are going to die; all is as it should be in the universe. Before he leaves, he writes a note for Tessa, telling her the details of making the shower work [kick the pipes in the joining while spinning the handle up to the top setting], to help herself to whatever food was in the fridge [if you could still call it that], and to feel free kill anything that came through the door [especially that bastard Hayden]. He tapes it to the television and leaves her a clean pair of his sweats and a t-shirt given that her clothes are ruined. Then he teleports to his first target, thinking even though she’s basically his handler, Tessa is the closest thing to a friend he’s got.

* * *

 

Despite the fact that everything is going smoothly, Dean can’t shake the uneasy feeling in his chest. No monsters, no rapist assholes, the biggest hitch was a six year old who wanted to know why Dean was ‘covered in funny red dirt,’ the remnants of some brick wall in Russia. Dean had told her that her that he was fighting big bad rock golems, brushing off the dust as soon as he got the munchkin to cross over. But still, there’s a not-quite-right, something weird and he’s haunted by deja vu all day. It’s not til he gets more than half way through his list that something clicks. It’s the woman. She’s a looker, tall and leggy with brown tanned skin, dark hair and eyes. Not the type you forget quickly. And he hasn’t. In fact, Dean would bet anything that he killed her not a month ago. He flips his book open with a frown, finds her name; Lisa Braeden. It’s uncrossed, sitting there in its slanted cursive. With a frown he turns the pages back, skimming as he goes. When he gets to the spot where he’s almost sure her name should be, there’s nothing. No name, crossed or uncrossed; just a blank white space. He stares at it a second, waiting for the punchline. Rubs his eyes a little. Blinks a few times. Nothing changes. A sudden feeling of dread has him flicking through the rest of the pages, finding more and more spaces, empty spots for empty graves. Swearing he looks back to Lisa. She’s crossing the road, and with a jolt he remembers how she died the first time. He makes it to her just as the car hits, kills her quickly so it’s painless. Still she’s gasping, gripping her arm and holding her stomach like she’s trying to hold her internal organs in. Her head snaps up once she realises that it’s over and Dean opens his mouth to try and explain what the hell is going on, to figure whether she knows she’s died already, when she shouts “Dean!” and flings her arms around his neck in killer hug for a dead chick.

“What do you remember?” he asks her as she pulls away. She frowns shaking her head.

“I-I remember, well, this,” she gestures at the scene around her, people crowding around her dead body. Lisa grimaces at the blood and mess before continuing. “I remember you coming, I remember passing over.” She smiles at that, and for the first time Dean wonders what passing over’s like from the other side, as the one going through instead of the portal. “I remember Heaven. And then… then there was a huge wash of darkness. Not black. Like when you close your eyes and it’s not quite any colour. It was suffocating. And then I woke up and it was like I’d never left, a week had passed and no-one remembered me being dead.”

“So, wait you’ve been up and walking for almost _3 weeks_?”

She nodded. “Yeah. It was the weirdest thing.” She looks up at Dean expectantly, obviously waiting for answers as to why she isn’t up in the clouds. He doesn’t have them. He starts pacing again, trying to figure out what to do. Now not only is Death AWOL, Tessa out of commission and everything confusing as fuck, but he’s also got a ghost, one he’s already sent to the flip side, here in the land of the living and he has no idea what to do with her. He purses his lips, turns to Lisa with a frown.

“I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to go back to Heaven right now.”

“Okay.” She answers with a nod, surprising him. Common sense is unusual in the dead.

“So… I guess you’re stuck with me. I’ll drop you off with Te- ah, an associate of mine, later, but I’ve still got-” He pauses and counts, “about 6 more jobs before that. Think you can handle?”

She takes a deep breath, her eyes wide but nods none the less. He holds his hand out, she takes it and he zaps them to eastern asia.

The first guy is a member of a triad, thickly muscled and with a mean attitude. He dies from a bad case of food poisoning.

The second is an overweight business man. His wife pushes him down the stairs and his neck snaps.

Third is a woman in southern France.  Her demise is an untreated dog bite.

Forth is a kid, no more than 15. He hangs himself from a tree in the backyard.

Number five is a 60 year old woman. She passes away in her sleep.

Lucky last number 6 is a four year old. Her cancer surgery goes wrong.

“This is what you do?” Lisa asks him. He can feel the pity in her gaze so he turns away as they walk further up the street outside the hospital.

“Yeah.” He doesn’t tell her about the memory thing. He doesn’t want her to feel creeped out that he knows her entire life. He doesn’t want her to pity him more when she remembers number four.

Suddenly his head whips around as he feels something massive come onto his radar. Something not normal. It feels like pure, unadulterated death. And Dean knows it’s what was chasing him yesterday.

“What _is_ that?” Lisa asks him, and he’s barely surprised that she can feel it too. He’s almost surprised that the living people around him can’t feel it; he wants to shout at them “Run! You fools!” but he isn’t Gandalf and the Balrog is coming no matter what the beating hearts do. He does grab Lisa’s hand though, and gaps it, swearing steadfastly all the way. He can feel it getting closer, despite his zig zagging through alleys and right when the footsteps are thudding over the sound of his heart, when he can feel the things hot breath _literally_ on his heels, he lets go of Lisa ,wheels around, shouts for her to keep going. She falters but continues when he shouts again, “ ** _GO._** ”

Dean turns to the creatures in front of him then. They’re like nothing he’s ever seen, about 7” tall hunched on all fours as it is and spindly with limbs like barely covered skeletons. Their faces are like masks made from oversized human skulls, bigger than they should be with red hot flames glowing in the eye sockets. Two large wings hang from their backs, not like a bird or even a bat. They’re like scaley insect wings, with the bone structure sticking out like veins. Each finger is like a talon, with a sharply curved tip. The skin is a dead green-blue-grey colour but it wears a tattered black cloak which covers most of its body. Long grey-green hair streams from the back of the mask, and its jaw hinges open, showing hundreds of rows of tiny razor teeth. And there are three of them

Dean pulls his gun and starts shooting. He gets two body shots on one and nicks the mask on another. It takes a swipe at him, manages to hit him against the wall of the alley. He wheezes and staggers to his feet, managing to duck the next set of claws, clearly intending to rip his head from his body.

“That all you got, you son of a bitch?” He shouts, raising his gun again, taking the time to aim and fires a shot straight through an eye flame. It sputters out for a moment, just long enough for him to get his hopes up, before bursting back into life.  He can’t evade the next round of blows and soon he finds himself spitting blood and maybe a couple of teeth, his right shoulder shredded. He’s struggling to his feet again, raising his gun when a burst of light shoots through the alley. Dean holds his hands up to fend it off and when it clears he’s completely shocked to see man standing there. _Hold on… is that the dude from the bar? It is! The hell..?_

Bar-dude has his back to him, but Dean is at least 80% it’s the same guy and that’s just because he may or may not have head trauma. Only now he has a pair of black birds wings attached to his shoulders.

“Dean.” The voice is gravelly, and it sends a shock through Dean that he assures himself is from Bar-dudes apparent knowledge of his name.

“Run.” Dean doesn’t hesitate. He runs, limping a little as he looks for Lisa. She’s at the end of the alley. She grips onto his uninjured arm and they make it to a public bathroom where Dean catches his breath enough to ‘port them both home.


	4. Hedwig

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Why are you here now then? Why suddenly are you ‘helping’?” Castiel shrugs.
> 
> “I am a soldier. I do as I am told. And my orders are to assist you, Deaths protégé.”
> 
> “With what exactly?” There isn’t much point playing it dumb given what Castiel saved him from earlier, but Dean doesn’t trust him with the whole hey-death-has-been-abducted-by-skeletal-dragon-flies-and-he’s-left-me-to-protect-the-one-ring thing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jeepers this took a long time to update! Sorry!  
> Unfortunately I'm going right into exams which is a total bitch, so it might be just as long before the next update.  
> Anyway, read on! This is the first proper Cas chapter.
> 
> Edit: Oh I forgot to mention! I'm a part of this Superwholock webseries! There aren't any videos up yet but it would still be great of you to look at these links and junk. I'm not gonna make it a habit to promote this everywhere, so don't worry about me harassing you with links at every turn, but still it would mean a lot.
> 
> Websites:
> 
> The Series Website: http://superwholocktheseries.weebly.com/Websites:  
> Pledgie (Donation, PayPal donations): http://pledgie.com/campaigns/21365  
> GoFundMe (Donations, no PayPal donations): http://www.gofundme.com/3tcwjw  
> Etsy Store: http://www.etsy.com/shop/SuperWhoLockSeries?ref=si_shop

It only takes a split second for Dean to remember that he shouldn’t have been able to zap Lisa inside; she’s a damn ghost after all and the shit-hole he calls home is salted and sealed -or at least, it should be.  His eyes flick to the broken line on the door just as it starts to open, and he raises his arm and pulls the trigger, recognizing Tessa with horror as the click of an empty magazine rings through the room. They stand there in shock for what feels like an eternity but can’t be more than 2 seconds at most before Dean collapses, falling partially on Lisa, who tries to catch some of his weight but fails miserably. The last thing he thinks before he’s totally gone is that this is definitely not his preferred situation to have two absolute babes screaming his name.

* * *

 

When Dean wakes up, everything hurts. There’s a particularly painful burning coming from his left shoulder, and a sort of weird, dull aching just below his right hip, on the outside of his thigh. The late afternoon sunlight slipping between his half-heartedly boarded up windows cuts through his closed eyelids, and he rolls onto his front to shield his eyes with a groan. The groan turns into a sharp hiss of pain as he finds a new sore spot in his upper right arm.

“Oh, grow up,” Tessa’s voice says from somewhere to his left. He lifts his head a little at the sound of her boots approaching, squinting his eyes up at her.

“Here.” She passes him a chipped mug. He takes a swig and almost spits the foul concoction back into the cup.

“The fuck is that? You tryna kill me?” Tessa rolls her eyes.

“You’re already dead, Dean.  Now drink up. It’ll help you heal faster, both physically and power wise.” She watches him until he’s finished, only then letting him drop the mug to feel around on the floor for the box of painkillers he keeps there. He pops about four and washes them down with whisky. There are at least two no-no’s right there but like Tess said, he’s dead anyway.

“Where’d y’ go?” Dean asks her at last, looking up to meet her greeny-hazel eyes. “And why’d y’ use the door?” She stands, taking the mug with her to place in the sink.

“Teleporting here from Russia of all places drained the last of my power so for at least a couple more days, I’m on empty. So, I had to use the door.” Dean glances towards the door where the salt is now back in its place.

“I went to go get ingredients for that,” she nods to the pot sitting on top of his little electronic stove top thingy (Dean doesn’t really know what it’s called, just that he uses it for frying bacon and eggs in his one tiny frying pan. Actually he doesn’t even know where the fuck Tessa got that pot, but she better get rid of it once she leaves because that potion she gave him is already starting to smell like she’s tryna fumigate the place.) “And I got some food.”

“What’s wrong w’ m’ food?”

“What exactly do you classify as food? Because I was about to call a museum and offer them your fridge as proof of evolution.”

The words hit him with more force than he would have expected, just Tessa’s typical snark, and suddenly he’s in a memory and he knows it’s his, not some random deader’s because there’s Sam, right there.

_“Where the hell is it, Dean?” Sam shouted, his fists doing some weird-ass half clenching, half theatrical flail thing. Dean spared him a single glance before returning to his Dr Sexy reruns._

_“Where’s what?” Sam stomped his feet over and pulled the plug out of the wall._

_“The hell man?!” Sam pointed his meanest bitch-face in his brothers direction._

_“My laptop!”_

_“I don’t freaking know!”_

_Sighing heavily, the younger brother pinched the bridge his nose in agitation. “Dude, I put up with a lot of your shit.”_

_Dean frowned half mockingly. “Whaddya talking about, I’m a joy to be around.”_

_“Yeah? Your dirty socks in the sink? Your food in the fridge?”_

_His frown turned defensive. “What’s wrong with my food?”_

_“It’s not food anymore Dean, it’s Darwinism!”_

_Dean huffed out an annoyed breath, muttered, “I like it.”_

The memory dissolves then, leaving Dean looking not at his ridiculously tall moose of a brother but at the short, dark-haired form of Tessa. No time seems to have passed, because she hasn’t noticed his mental absence. He blinks his eyes in shock, reaching for the bottle again as pain washes over him, no longer of the physical variety but of the emotional chick-flick-bullshit type, that leaves a weird stabby feeling in his chest that’s almost as real as his cuts and bruises.  The thought of injuries reminds him he has to check his wounds, no matter what hoodoo crap Tessa’s done to him, because he might be dead but he’s still human, and one of a kind at that so he really has no idea what works on him and what doesn’t. But he feels his eyelids dipping again, sleep chasing him in and all he can do is hope that Tessa had the consideration to make sure he wasn’t gonna bleed out.

* * *

 

Dean wakes a second time to the ruffling of feathers. He frowns, squeezing his still closed lids in confusion. Feathers? How the hell would a bird get-

“Hello Dean.”

The deep voice sends a shock through him, and even as he reaches for the knife under his pillow, Dean tells himself that its surprise at hearing a voice way too low to be either Lisa or Tessa and not because he _really_ recognizes that low gravelly growl. He rolls up to his feet almost instantly, though the sharp twinges of pain from his battle wounds make him wince, staggering and grimacing a little as he gets vertical.

“How did you find me and how the hell did you get in here?” Dean has about 20 million other questions, like _how do you know my name_ and _what are you_ and _the hell did you do to my tv?_ which is now blaring out high pitched static but he settles for the simple things.

“Salt does not work on me. I’m not a demon, nor a ghost, nor,” he shrugs slightly, as if thinking “a hobgoblin. Or anything else of the sort. And you are fairly easy for me to find, Dean.”

He takes a step towards Dean, who raises his knife, gripping it tighter. The man pauses, frowning a little.

“Who are you then?”  Dean’s eyes snap to Tessa. He forgot she was still here, but there she is, leaning against the counter in the kitchen. Lisa stands beside her, eyes scared but expression steely. Tessa’s face is an almost hostile blank, one of his shotguns gripped in her hands. There’s glass on the floor and Dean realises that the light bulbs have not just blown but straight up exploded.

“My name is Castiel,” the creature speaks, drawing Dean’s eyes back to him, and Dean notes that those unnaturally blue eyes have never left his face. It’s creepy and unnerving to say the least. Castiel’s eyes finally look to the Reaper as if gauging her reaction. Dean takes this opportunity to step forward and plunge the demon killing knife right into his heart.

He waits for blood, or at least the freaky red electrical shortage that happens when you knife a demon but nothing happens. Dean backs away slowly, suddenly terrified as Castiel turns back to him, frowning at his chest, more in confusion than concern as though he’s surprised to find the handle sticking out. He wraps his fingers around it and pulls the knife free from his chest, dropping it on the ground nonchalantly. The skin of his chest seals closed immediately. Dean stares in shock.

“The hell are you?” Dean stammers, his eyes still on Castiel’s chest. There’s a hole in his shirt but the skin is completely unmarked. Castiel straightens up, big black wings flaring out behind him.

“I am an Angel of the Lord.” He looks to Dean like he should be impressed. He isn’t.

“Bullshit.” The so-called angel’s eyebrows furrow in confusion.

“Angels don’t give two shits about humanity. And they avoid Reapers like us like the plague. No-ones even heard of an angel lifting so much as a little finger to do jack for anyone, let alone bothering to beam their ass down here.”

“I-” Castiel looks a little overwhelmed with Dean’s reaction to say the least. “I do not know who ‘Jack’ is, or what you expect the movement of my fingers to do for him. Nor do I beam anywhere. I have wings.  I can fly. I am here to help you, Dean. Not Jack, or any other miscellaneous persons you might have as examples of my personal shortcomings. As for Reapers,” Castiel’s eyes move to Tessa then. “I know that some of my brethren look down on them. I do not know why since it seems to me that they are only doing their jobs. Perhaps they frown upon those who sell their skills to a wider market.” Dean knew he was talking about the freelancers, Reapers who worked as mercenaries or undead taxi-drivers between the realms for anybody who could afford it. The rest of the Reapers hated them, hated the reputation they brought upon Death’s children. Dean could tell Tessa was grinding her teeth just at the mention of them. Time for a diversion before she went _Kill Bill_ on this fucker’s ass.

“Why are you here now then? Why suddenly are you ‘helping’?” Castiel shrugs.

“I am a soldier. I do as I am told. And my orders are to assist you, Deaths protégé.”

“With what exactly?” There isn’t much point playing it dumb given what Castiel saved him from earlier, but Dean doesn’t trust him with the whole hey-death-has-been-abducted-by-skeletal-dragon-flies-and-he’s-left-me-to-protect-the-one-ring thing, plus he’s pretty sure he can get more info out of this guy that way. The slightly sarcastic look Castiel throws his way tells him that it isn’t going to work.

“Well, the Death Gods I held off for you earlier would be a good start. Which reminds me.” The Angel steps forward, and places his hand on Dean’s chest. Before Dean can say whoa-what-the-frickle-frack-are-you-doing-get-yer-godly-mitts-offa-me, there’s a searing light and then he’s stumbling back, winded.

“What the hell was that?!” Dean pants angrily.

“I carved protection sigils into your rib cage. Now, nothing will be able to find you, except possibly Death himself, though I expect that is done through some kind of telepathic link rather than-”

“Just. Stop. Stop for 5 seconds okay.” Dean leans against the wall, breathing heavily.

“So… so those things were Death Gods?” Castiel nods, eyes looking around at the warding painted on Dean’s walls.

“Yes, I believe so. There isn’t a lot of lore about these particular ones and I didn’t have time to check heavens library before I came here. Your Nordic rune of protection is wrong.” Dean watches as the angel’s fingers trace the black lines.

“How did they find me in the first place?” Castiel picks up the black marker Dean keeps on the table with everything else important and corrects the rune before starting a new one.

“The same way I did, I expect.”

“Which is?” Dean almost sighs. The angel finishes what he’s drawing on the wall before turning to Dean. Tessa and Lisa’s eyes follow him warily. Tess seems calm but Dean knows her, can see her strategizing how the three of them could take the angel out if need be. Lisa looks to have decided the best course of action is to pretend she isn’t there, watching silently as only a ghost can.

“You’re fairly easy to find. You glow black.” Dean blinks.

“What the hell does that even mean?” Castiel turns back to drawing his sigils.

“It means what I said Dean. Angels glow white. Reapers are an absence of anything, blank spot. You, Dean, glow black.” Dean gives up trying to understand what Castiel means by that. He pushes away from the wall and walks to his coat, feeling the pockets as he pulls it on. Book, check. Mystical envelope of destiny, check. Gun? He finds it on the table, checks the mag, reloads it. Tucks it into the back of his jeans. Check. He picks his knife off the floor, adds an iron stake to the inside of his jacket and fills his pockets with a few other things he might need.

“Well, Castiel if you’re done tagging my house then we needa get going.” The angel frowns at Dean, capping the permanent marker and placing back where he found it.

“Where?”

“Unless you’re planning on winging it back to heaven go rummage through your Library of the Holy introvert, then we need some more info on these death gods, if that’s even what they are. I’ve read all of these books at least 4 times,” Dean gestures to the masses of text littering, well, everywhere. “So, we’re going to have to go find a contact of mine.” Tessa’s eyes shoot to Dean’s faster than a bullet.

“Dean, do really think-” Dean cuts her off

“I ain’t leaving him here Tess.  And it’s not like he can ever find his way back there.” Tessa purses her lips but nods.

“C’mon.” Tess heads to the door first breaking the salt line so Lisa can follow her. Castiel trails behind them, struggling to pull his wings in enough to fit through the doorway. Dean can’t help the amusement on his features at that, the big bad angel tryna struggle through his front door.

“Y’okay there Hedwig?” he chuckles as Castiel finally pushes through to the other side. “Y’know, I always expected angels to taller.” He can feel Castiel’s death-glare on his back as he re-salts the door in a wide circle so it won’t get wiped when they close the door, knows the angel is puffing himself, trying to make himself taller. It’s adorable.

“I am not in my true visage. My true form is approximately the size of your Chrysler building.” Dean raises an eyebrow as he turns, pulling the door closed and picking it closed.

“Then what form are you in now? Holy tax accountant?”

“Tax accounta-? This is a vessel.”

“You’re possessing some poor bastard?” Dean doesn’t know why he expected better. Everything he’s heard about angels so far gives him the impression that they’re all self-righteous pricks, but somehow he’s still annoyed at the information.

“He’s a devout man. He actually prayed for this.” Castiel says it as if it absolves the fact that there’s still someone else stuck in there. He seems convinced of it in fact.

“I’m grateful for it actually. It is not easy to find a vessel that can contain me.”

“I have the same problem with women.” The words slip out before Dean can stop them, and he can hear the disappointed groan Tessa makes. A glance shows she has her face in her hands and Lisa is shaking her head in exasperation. Dean chooses to ignore them. He makes his way through the hallway and out of the half shattered glass doors at the front of his building.

“Why don’t you just teleport? If it’s a depletion of power then I’m sure I can-”

“I’m fine. Tess and Lisa can’t ‘port but I’m good. No, we’re driving. You can’t teleport where we’re going. It’s too well concealed.” Castiel frowns again, his head tilting. He looks like a confused pigeon.

“Where are we going?”

Dean looks at him, waiting to gauge his reaction. “The Goblin Market.”


	5. Jimbo's Ride and Fun Park

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The sign above the entryway proclaims “Jimbo’s Ride and Fun Park” in a rusted cursive, the letters adorned with coloured light bulbs, all smashed, missing or dead. It hangs from a metal archway, depicting the imprint of a grotesquely smiling clown, its arms spread wide.

Dean hadn’t been sure if Castiel would know about the Gobilin Market. Pop culture references seemed to fly straight over the dudes head so Deans guessing they didn’t exactly get cable up in heaven. But the Goblin Market was pretty well known to those of the non-human persuasion. Or maybe infamous was a better way to put it. Castiel knew though, if the stony blank expression on his face was anything to go by.

The car is parked half a block away, down an alley between a strip club and another round of quake damaged flats. She’s a beauty of a car, ’66 four door Buick Electra, in a matte off-white colour. Dean really hopes she isn’t _the_ pale horse, from the legends. She is Deaths after all. Dean himself is more of a chevy kinda guy… and it must just be one of those days such a simple thought, one that he swears he’s had before, causes another chunk of his life, his _living breathing human_ life comes flying back to him. The memory that hits him isn’t the same as last time. Last time it happened in a blink, in a split second he was there, in the past with Sammy, arguing about stupid things. This time though, the memories hit him like rocks to the back of the skull. They come to him in flashes as well, like he’s actually remembering them, rather than reliving them.

_Dad’s in the front seat and Deans in shot gun and their driving, driving the silence is everywhere and it’s all Deans fault and his face hurts and-_

_-Sammy’s sitting next to him in shot gun laughing, then time jump he’s crying jump he’s staring stonily out the window he’s mad he’s stoic he’s bored he’s-_

_-Dean’s sitting on the trunk and they’re drinking, it’s him and Sam and beers and then it’s just him and beers and beers and then whiskey, scotch, vodka-_

_-he’s lying on the back seat, and he’s pushing the roof back up, kicking it into place and then he’s in the back seat and it’s a woman another woman, woman after woman and-_

_-Sam’s driving and he’s arguing with Dad in shotgun and Dean’s in the back observing his family try to shatter itself, always trying to tear each other apart and then there’s a truck and it’s gonna hit Sammy’s breaking but it’s not fast enough no not fast enough no no SAM-_

Dean stumbles, crashes into Tessa. She looks like she’s gonna yell at him but her face grows worried when she sees his pained grimace, steps into his path when he would attempt to walk it off.

“Dean. What’s wrong?” He shakes his head, but Tessa just cocks an eyebrow and punches his right arm. He hisses in pain and flinches away from her.

“If you try and pull some tough guy act when you’re actually hurt, you are putting all of us in danger. Don’t think for a second that I won’t leave you locked in that rotting shoebox you call an apartment. With the damned angel!”  She adds when Dean opens his mouth to protest. He closes his mouth with a snap. Tessa stares him down, until he caves, her lips pursed, brow furrowed.

“Look it’s just a couple of scratches. They’re not too bad unless people go around punching them.” He makes his tone nonchalant, but its obvious Tessa isn’t falling for it. She closes her eyes, exhales through her nose.

“Where?”

“Uh.. right arm and leg. Left shoulder.”

“You got a first aid kit?”

“Trunk. Same as everything else.” She snatches the keys out of his hand, grimaces when she pops the trunk and sees the mess. Dean glances at Castiel and Lisa. The angel is staring at them shamelessly, frowning slightly with his head cocked to the side. Dean stares back at him for a moment before he realises that the heavenly bastard has no intention of looking away. Lisa is staring vacantly down at the road on her right, a kind of longing playing on her features. It occurs to him that maybe she has a family, people who are mourning her. A husband, kids. Friends. It hits him briefly that he might have had the same, though from what he just remembered-

“Dean.” Tessa calls him expectantly, the bag in her hand. He walks over and she pats the now closed trunk with her free hand.

“Sit.” He pushes himself up, trying hard not to look like he’s moping. It mustn’t work because Tessa rolls her eyes as she sits the bag besides him and unzips it.

“You call this a first aid kit? It’s worse than your fridge.” He knows the bag isn’t exactly perfect but c’mon it’s not _that_ bad. A glance shows that it is. The kit consists of a sewing needle, a spool of strong thread, some half clean bandages, holy water, a bottle of jack, a pack of matches, aspirin and a box of hello kitty band aids. Dean starts to stammer out an explanation for them, but all Tessa does is raise an eyebrow and pick out the needle and thread.

“Shirt.” She says as she eyes the needle suspiciously, like if she glares at it hard enough then any bacteria will die under her glare.

“If you wanted to get my clothes off, all you had to do was ask.” Dean says with a smirk. She rolls her eyes while he pulls his jacket off, laying it beside him. The Metallica shirt beneath it is torn where his wounds are but Dean knows from experience that trying to stitch someone up through their clothes is just asking for trouble so that’s gone too. Tessa pays no attention to him as he takes inventory of his cuts, bruises and one particularly deep scratch on his shoulder, instead testing the needles sharpness on her thumb before dousing it in whiskey in an attempt to kill what bacteria her glare could not. Deans eyes wander back to their companions as she fusses with the thread and bandages. Nothings changed. Lisa’s eyes are a little more concerned, but her expression is still vacant, staring across the road at dull neon of the 24 hour grocery store. It’s only then that Dean realises night has fallen; the road is lit with street lights. His night vision is good, almost as good as his normal vision but maybe he hit his head worse than he thought because normally he at least notices when the sun goes offline. It’s late too, at least 11 at night, and when Tessa had fed him her spell it was still light out. How long had he slept? And how long had it been since he’d slept more than 3 hours?

The sudden sting of the needle pricking his skin draws his attention back to the here and now. The shock of it almost makes him flinch but he manages to keep it to a light jolt. Tessa looks up at him, her gaze reprimanding before turning back to her work. Dean lets his eyes wander to Castiel as she stiches him up methodically. Like Lisa his gaze remains fixed on relatively the same spot, which in his case happens to be Dean. Also like Lisa, his point of focus drifted slightly… astray. Which is to say, very focused on Deans chest.

The gaze isn’t sexual though. It’s not even interested, like he might have some sort of perverted curiosity about how ribcages are hidden or some shit. It’s more… confusion. Concern maybe. The frown creasing his brow is the harshest yet, and those stupidly blue laser lights the guy calls eyes are peering at Dean’s chest like he’s trying to see through the flesh. The intensity of it has Dean looking down himself. There are scars, some of which he doesn’t remember getting, violent ugly things from when he was alive where his flesh has set into thick ridges of lumpy, violently red scar tissue, especially over his left hip where the seems to be nothing but, and a few he got on the job, though unlike the others those always fade back to nothing over time. He has tattoos as well, mostly warding sigils or runes of power that Death had told him about, though there is one on his lower right back of a skeleton in a cowboy hat riding a flaming pig (a drunken dare that he honestly doesn’t regret). Add that with the smattering of freckles over his shoulders and collarbone and Dean guesses he does look a bit like a circus freak if you really wanna get down to it. None of any of it has concerned him at all before, but the penetrating nature of Castiel’s gaze has him getting weirdly self-conscious. He looks back up at Castiel to find that the other man’s eyes have already shifted to his own face, his expression back to the neutral peevishness it had been in when Dean told them their destination.  Dean can feel the blood rushing to his face, mentally cursing himself for being such a damn girl. Tessa takes this opportunity to pour hard liquor on his now stitched up wounds. He swears, jerking away from her as it settles in his forcibly closed cuts with a burning sting.

“Jesus Christ woman! A little warning would be nice!”

“Don’t be such a baby.” He huffs out an annoyed breath as she works the bandages around his arm and shoulder. His thigh hadn’t been cut, jeans remaining mercifully intact thank God, he’s not sure how much more public nudity they can get away with. The pain there has dulled too, probably from the pain killers he gulped back earlier. Tessa tucks the end of the bandage in and smacks him on the back unsympathetically.

“Get dressed. We’ve got things to do.”

“So close to a perfect sentence.” Dean grins, all thoughts of x-ray blue eyes and self-conscious chest watching hidden in the same part of the mind that holds the questions of his human life. Tess gives him another harder slap for the effort, quietly smirking as she repacks the first aid things while Dean swears beside her. He struggles back into his shirt and jacket, jumping down to the asphalt.

It takes them 20 minutes more to get Castiel’s wings in the car; (“Why can’t I just sit in the front?” “Because I said so. Tessa’s in the front. Can’t you just like, magic them away?” “I’m low on power. I don’t think I’d be able to bring them back onto this plane.” “Why the hell are you low on power?” “I used it all saving you from Death Gods.” “… Oh. Hmph.”) By the time they’re on the road there’s a crescent moon is sitting high in the sky, and they make the drive in an irritated silence.

* * *

 

They make it in just under an hour. Dean notices both Lisa and Castiel’s faces fold into frowns and he realises for the first time that she’s just as curious as he is. There are a few other cars, some of which Dean recognizes, but they’re mostly hidden between the towers of junk.

The Goblin Market is in an abandoned carnival ground turned abandoned scrap yard. Well not really. It’s not really anywhere but this place is one of its entrances. The sign above the entryway proclaims “Jimbo’s Ride and Fun Park” in a rusted cursive, the letters adorned with coloured light bulbs, all smashed, missing or dead. It hangs from a metal archway, depicting the imprint of a grotesquely smiling clown, its arms spread wide. The rust on its face looks disturbingly like blood in the star light, and Dean thinks out of nowhere the horror that would overcome his brother, even as a grown man, at seeing the thing. The dude had a major fear of clowns, Dean remembers, and this thing, well this thing even creeped him out. His baby brother wouldn’t have stood a chance.

He leads the way inside, making his way past old Pennywise and the ticket booth.

Just past the entrance way is where things start to get interesting. Although everything from the theme park is still in the same place as it had been in its heyday (though in considerably worse condition, or at least Dean hopes so) it had been overwhelmed with scrap metal. The bumper cars are surrounded by old washing machines and dryers, stacked in and around the carts like a metal fortress; the carousel is overwhelmed with car scraps, doors and engines as well as whole cars themselves, as rusted and bent out of shape as the horses; the Ferris wheel is hemmed in by tower after tower of tyres, some balancing to almost half the height of the wheel itself. It’s as creepy as it is depressing and Lisa’s unease is almost tangible. Even Castiel seems moderately unsettled by the place and for some reason that tugs his lips into a lopsided smirk as he turns to gesture the others on. Dean knows the path well by now; They move on, past the old pens that now holds computers rather than animals, and the circus tent where they used to hold shows,  now TV’s and the occasional vagrant. They twist and turn their way further and further into the place until finally Dean rounds an old rollercoaster, encased in rust and refrigerator parts and they meet the labyrinth.

Ok, technically it’s a maze, but even though it’s one of the only piece of the original park that the scraps haven’t touched, it’s so overgrown that it makes the vines on sleeping beauties castle look like a half-dead Peace-Lily, rotting away in some decrepit old bastards apartment.  And labyrinth just sounds about 600% cooler, in spite of (or maybe because of, Dean’s still not admitting to have committed it to memory) that movie with David Bowie. (Is he the only one who sees the irony of having to go through a Labyrinth to get to the Goblin Market?)

They only have to go in a few feet, just out of sight from the entrance and to a dead end.  Both Castiel and Lisa look confused and scared, and he reaches for his pocket before either of them can ask any questions that he doesn’t want to answer. He opens a small canister of sprinkles, pricks the tip of his finger with his knife and adds 3 drops of blood. He mutters the incantation into the jar as well before snapping the lid on and tossing it into the wall of leaves. For a moment, nothing happens. Dean sighs.

“C’mon Mab. Don’t be a sour puss.” His request is met with a high pitched buzzing noise, interspersed with a slightly lower almost muttering. She appears as a ball of light, her true form only visible if you lean in real close and good luck getting away with that and keeping your eyes. Apparently Dean’s the only one who speaks fairy though because Castiel looks even more perplexed than usual. It makes him feel smug.

“Don’t fucking call me Mab you insolent ass waffle,” The fairy shouts, “I should hang you from that Ferris wheel by your damn ears, who do you think you are, showing up here with all these people! Reapers is one thing, thems good people but ghosts! And the fuck is that douche canoe doing, what the fuck even is he, thinks he can get away with staring at a lady like that. HEY, ASSHOLE! KEEP YOUR DAMN EYES TO YOURSELF!”

Dean laughs as she zips over to Castiel and punches him in the nose with her tiny fist. There’s no magic behind the punch but she’s still got an arm on her and when she whizzes back to her position in front of the wall, Dean sees the angel rub his nose bewilderedly. It’s so shocked and innocent that Dean feels the corners of his mouth turning up into a huge grin, even as his laughter winds down. He glances at Castiel once more before turning to the fairy.

“He ain’t so bad. And Lise is a total sweet heart. We’re not here to cause trouble, just let us in.” The fairy huffs out a breath.

“All you do is cause trouble, buttface.” She sighs dramatically. “Perhaps I could let you in… if you gave me a kiss.” Dean lets out a grumbling laugh.

“As much as I’d love to, you know that ain’t gonna happen, sugar.”

“And here I was, hoping you’d forgotten about fairy love magic. Aah, a girl can dream though. I’ll let you through. You fucking owe me though.”

“I’ll bring back one of those cakes you like, how bout that?”

“You got yourself a deal there, Death-kin. Get yer ass through before I change my mind.” She buzzes to the side and the vines start to glow with green light until that’s all there is, blazing in the darkness of the maze.

“I’ll getcha one day, Dean.” The fairy murmurs as he passes.

“We’ll see.” He replies before he steps through the wall and everything is light.


	6. Adventures in Fairyland

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “C’mon.” He calls to the others, and leads them around the corner into the light.
> 
> The path opens into a huge clearing on the banks of a river. The stars and moon shine brightly above, and the entire place is filled with stalls and tents. It’s lit with flaming torches in various colours, glowing stones mounted on sticks and strings of lights with tiny, vibrantly glowing snails crawling on them, and the whole area is bursting with the sounds laughter and loud pipe music, the calls of the salesmen/women/creatures ringing out as they haggle on the sidelines. Further ahead an elven man and a seemingly human woman dance in front of a huge bonfire. The river is occupied mermaids and river nymphs, scaly blue women reclining on the rocks and leaning against the shore. One winks at Dean, huge black eyes wide and beckons with a webbed finger. When he shakes his head she shrugs, as if to say ‘your loss’ and flips back into the water.

The four of them step onto a forest path, illuminated by creatures in jars that at first glance appear to be fireflies but upon closer inspection are toddler versions of the same kind of fairy as the one that greeted them, in bright, rainbow colours. They sit at the bottoms of the jars, cooing and staring in awe, or fluttering, eyes wide and mischievous at the new comers. None of them look in the least distressed at the fact that they’re locked up in tiny fairy baby prison, a fact which Dean holds to his heart as the kids genuinely not minding it.

As useful as the Goblin Market is, Dean knows about it’s bad reputation; underground drug deals of the magical kind, things that strung out creatures and humans alike in ways worse than meth, cocaine and ecstasy put together; trafficking of magical creatures; trades in black magic and soul sales. The place was basically known as a magical black market. Dean hated that shit, had seen what it’d done to people, had to live through the whole process every time he sent them packing to the other side. But for all its reputation, what he had seen of the Goblin Market as pretty straight up. Ok, so it’s not exactly family friendly, but honestly, it’s no more dangerous than your everyday darkened alley or shady park. There are people there he wouldn’t trust enough to blink in front of, people who would happily walk off a cliff if he asked and everything in between.

“C’mon.” He calls to the others, and leads them around the corner into the light.

The path opens into a huge clearing on the banks of a river. The stars and moon shine brightly above, and the entire place is filled with stalls and tents. It’s lit with flaming torches in various colours, glowing stones mounted on sticks and strings of lights with tiny, vibrantly glowing snails crawling on them, and the whole area is bursting with the sounds laughter and loud pipe music, the calls of the salesmen/women/creatures ringing out as they haggle on the sidelines. Further ahead an elven man and a seemingly human woman dance in front of a huge bonfire. The river is occupied mermaids and river nymphs, scaly blue women reclining on the rocks and leaning against the shore. One winks at Dean, huge black eyes wide and beckons with a webbed finger. When he shakes his head she shrugs, as if to say ‘your loss’ and flips back into the water.

“Right. Ground rules.” Dean says, turning back to the stunned faces trailing behind him. Tessa had been here before but it is a pretty overwhelming place and her eyes are already sparkling in a way that looked far too dangerous for Deans liking. Castiel and Lisa are even worse. Lisa’s eyes have grown wide and her mouth wider as she attempts to take in everything. Cas’s gaze had stuck on the dancers and he stares at them, expression soft. It’s a nice look on him, much better than that ever present frown, although admittedly the confusion that accompanies it _is_ kind of funny, and Dean finds himself looking a little too long before he shakes away _that_ thought process. He really needs to get laid if he’s gonna start acting like one of the starstruck chicks in those Spanish dramas he watches, and over none other than a freaking angel, who everyone knows are just dickbags with wings.

“Guys? Guys!” Thankfully his voice is enough to gain their attention. He huffs out a heavy breath, running a hand through his hair. He can already tell their ragtag gang of magical misfits will fuck something up, and knowing the kind of magic around these parts, it ain’t gonna be pretty. That’s why he needs to lay down the law pronto.

“Rule number 1: Do not eat ANYTHING. I don’t care if you brought it in, once it’s in a fairy realm, its fairy food. And if you eat fairy food, everything else tastes like ash. Even pie. Forever.” Dean shudders a little at the thought but continues before any of them can butt in.

“Rule number 2: Do not kiss anyone, do not have sex with anyone, and do not give anyone your blood.  No matter how tempting it is.” He looks pointedly at each of them in turn.

“They’re used to seal all sorts of shady deals, not to mention spells. Plus, some fairies have this love magic…” He shakes his head.

“Anyway, you get lost, we’ll meet up at the big flaming pit over there. But try and stick with me.” Dean thinks over what he’s said, before adding;

 “And stay away from the mermaids!”

Tessa rolls her eyes, puts a hand on his arm before he can continue. “We get it papa bear. Now c’mon, it’ll be fine.” He relaxes a little under her touch. Tess is right. Castiel is a millennia old angel; surely he knows this sort of shit by now. And Lisa is a ghost. How much trouble can a ghost really get in to?

“Yeah, okay. Sure, we’ll be fine.”

Dean leads his way onward into the busy marketplace. He has more than a few contacts here; Pamela, the flirty psychic who changes the story of how she lost her eyes every time she’s asked; Madison, a werewolf waitress at the most popular food cart, picking up all the best gossip, trading info for info; Patrick, a witch who had to be the best damn griftter Dean had ever met ( and he had met a few including himself), a man who made all his deals with a game of poker;  and Jack, a vegan rugaru, who wasn’t the most informed, but a damned good tracker when you needed it, not to mention the fact that his missus made a damn good pie, just to name a few. Maybe he’ll go see them later, but right now he has a particular person in mind. He weaves his way through the clusters of fairies and Otherfolk where they crowd around stalls with crystals or spells. No-one pays particular attention to them, despite Castiel’s huge unwieldy wings. He’s not exactly the only creature there with a pair after all, although those with feathers rather than scales or insect like membranes are few and far between. Still, Dean’s relieved when they make it to their destination with little incident.

Charlie and Gilda’s tent is about half-way along the bank, striped with yellow and red. There are a few people around it, most of them seemingly human, though Dean knows the chances of that are pretty low. He ducks inside, trusting that the others will follow suit.

The interior of the tent is lit with glowing balls of yellowy-white light, hovering around the edges. While the outside is only about as big as your standard issue 2 man tent, the inside is massive and oval shaped. Gilda is crushing something with a pestle and mortar and chatting to a woman with blue hair. Her wares line the rest of the table, along with more ingredients, including feathers, herbs and various salts and liquids in small wooden bowls. There’s sage hanging from the high ceiling, for purification. Charlie is off to the side, tapping away at a laptop while an Asian man talks at her with his hands. She looks up when they come in, and a huge grin spreads across her face. The two finish their conversation as Dean and the others approach, and the man thanks Charlie enthusiastically in Japanese as he departs with a sheaf of paper in hand. She stands with a smile.

“Dean!” She reaches up to hug him, and he lets her, even allowing himself to hug back a little. Charlie is great, the little sister he never wanted, but she’s also incredibly mortal and even though he knows she can hold her own (the sword hanging at her hip and the rustle of chainmail beneath her _Buffy_ hoodie are proof enough of that) he doesn’t trust his life to hold friendships with someone so likely to die. Still, it’s good to see her.

“You workin’ a case or you just miss the coolest person you know?”

Cas gives him a weird, kinda disapproving look at Charlie’s question. Dean ignores him, answering her with a smirk.

“Why, would I miss Tessa, I get to see her all the time.” Luckily, the punch hits his uninjured arm but he still rubs at the spot in mock indignance.

“It’s not really a case but… there’s been some weird shit going on.” Charlie’s enthusiastic nod is the last thing he expects. “You’ve noticed?”

“Yeah, all sorts of weird deaths, and people coming back and just…”she shudders, “freaky stuff.”

“Like what?”

Charlie’s gaze skims the crowd around Gilda’s display, and Dean finally notices the heavy weight of eyes on his back.

“Um… in the back?”

He nods once, turning first to Lisa, who is inspecting one of the balls of light, rapt as she prods it with one insubstantial finger, then to Castiel who is, for once, not staring at Dean but the ground, not far from Charlie’s feet, his usually confused frown bordering on anger. Dean’s eyes rest lastly on Tessa, who rolls her eyes and says, “Go on, I’ll watch the children.”

He gives her a grateful half grin, calling ‘stay here’ over his shoulder none the less.

While most of Dean’s work is just straight forward seek-and-destroy type missions, dictated by his little black book of the decidedly non-sexy variety, sometimes shit goes down in the not so animal kingdoms. One of the reasons that most reapers hate the Freelancers is that they fuck up the natural order; they’re too busy off carting round the highest bidder to pick up their souls, or they get hired and paid to lead souls to the wrong place, to take them before their time, to intentionally corrupt the dead so they become vengeful. And when that shit happens, someone’s got to take care of it. Dean has no idea who did it for the first 12 billion years, (he sure as hell can’t see Death doing it all himself) but it’s his job now, and it feels pretty good to actually do something that helps people, rather than just kill them all. It was on one of these jobs that he met Charlie.

Some half pint douchebag had hired a Reaper to bind Gilda’s soul to him, manipulating her powers, which the gentle fairy usually used for healing small woodland animals and s, so that he could win both the Battle of Moondor (something Dean definitely did not find incredibly awesome) and the fair queen’s heart. Unfortunately for him, the queen was Charlie, who happened to be not only a frickin epic sword fighter, with a 5 mile long protective stream for her army but also a flaming lesbian. Even worse, she had the Sight; the ability to see souls, spells, ghosts and the real faces of the not-so-human. Sending a fairy to curse her army was basically leaving a freaking neon trail for her to come and beat down. She kicked the guy’s ass and then dragged both her victim and her distressed-no-longer damsel back to fairy land. They’d knighted her and named her elf-friend on the spot (something the Tolkien nerd was incessantly proud of) but there remained the problem that only the Reaper who bound Gilda to Mr Douchecanoe could reverse it. Meaning that punishment couldn’t be properly given until after she was freed.

That’s where Dean had come in.

Well, they wanted Death, but apparently the head honcho was too busy off doing Very Important Lord of All Life and Death Things(like eating greasy diner food)for the Fae court, so he’d put Dean as his forwarding number. The Fairy overlords were less than impressed when he showed up in torn jeans and an AC/DC shirt, and insisted on calling his attendant Legolas. They were significantly more impressed when, with the help of a certain red head, he’d towed back a Reaper named Russell in a fishing net, naked except for a pair of fluorescent pink unicorn underpants. It was hard not to bond with someone who you shared those kind of cases with, and Charlie got the girl. Gilda opened a healing centre named The Apothecary, where she sold homeopathic potions and cure-alls, as well as organic food that she grew in their own garden. None of it even had fairy magic; she was just that good with plants. They lived above the shop, and while he knew that it wasn’t a perfect relationship (Charlie had called him to cry and bitch for an hour after Gilda refused to let her eat meat in the house, and once Gilda went to go stay in the forest for a few days after they had a fight over Charlie’s RPG night falling on the solstice) they had a life about as normal as either of them was ever going- or was willing to- get.

Charlie leads him to the flap at the back of the tent. It opens into a square room, door flanked by boxes on either side. The left wall is a desk, set up with a computer with three monitors. The right side is covered in book shelves, full of lore, ancient texts as well as fantasy and sci-fi novels. She sits on the chair in front of it, plugging in the laptop she was using out front. Dean finds a seat that looks like it’s made entirely out of drift wood and sits down tentatively.

“I’ve already had 5 people come and talk to me about all the weird stuff that’s been happening. One guy, he runs one of those skinwalker refuges, and he came to me, saying that someone was hacking their system, marking people in their database who hadn’t died as dead. And then killing them in completely normal ways! One woman died in her sleep. Completely natural, door locked, no forced entry, no signs of foul play.” Her fingers move over the keys frantically, pulling open what looked to be a list on the right screen. It sounds to Dean like exactly what happened to Lisa, but Charlie isn’t done.

“So, I figured that something must be predicting the deaths. Because, really how do you set up someone dying from undetected lung cancer?

“But then, people there have also been dropping dead without explanation.” Okay, so that was new. “There are photos of some of the bodies in their database, but there’s only so much you can tell from a picture, and I can’t see anything without being there in person, so he’s set up a viewing tomorrow.” She doesn’t invite Dean to come, and he wouldn’t go if she did, because honestly, there’s not much he can tell from a body once it’s gone (they all look kind of grey to him.) But there’s something off in the way she’s avoiding his eyes. She’s still typing, but her gaze is steadily fixed on the keyboard and he knows for a fact that she doesn’t need to look anywhere near her hands to type twice as fast as she currently is. And besides…

“Since when have you been so chummy with the skinwalkers? And inspecting dead bodies? Is that something you and Gilda do on weekends?” Charlie’s fingers stutter on the keys and she finally meets Dean’s eyes, her expression guilty as hell. Her hands transfer to her neck, fiddling with the zip of her hoodie.

“Uh, actually I’ve kind of been… hunting.”

Oh sweet baby Jesus.

“ ** _HUNTING?!_** ” Dean doesn’t care that the question is actually more of a squawk. Hunting?! She’s hunting?

“Kind of. It’s like what your do, with the cases.”

“Oh, so somehow you hunting is my fault?”

“Dean.” She sounds so exasperated that he stops. “I haven’t told Gilda yet.” And that’s his cue to start again.

“So let me get this straight. You’ve been hunting. On your own. And your girlfriend doesn’t know about it.”

“You that know how she’d react would make how you’re reacting right now seem like a freaking birthday party.” Dean’s mouth closes with a snap at that, because she’s right.  Not for the reason she thinks though. Sure, Gilda is incredibly anti-warfare, and with violence being an integral of the hunter lifestyle, her long-term gal killing things on the side isn’t exactly going to go down well. But hunting is also one of the most dangerous jobs in the supernatural world. It doesn’t help that way too many of them are trigger happy folks with a penchant for the ‘shoot first, ask questions later’ mentality.

Unlike most, Dean doesn’t mind hunters. They’re not exactly cosy, but they’re all tough sons (and daughters) of bitches, and the ones with their heads screwed on right are good folk who just wanna weed out the evil in the world. There are so many casualties though. For the number of hunters to normal folk, Deans played Taxi of the Afterlife for far too many of the former. If Gilda found out that Charlie is off playing supernatural detective, then she’d be pissed. Mega pissed. Think less fairy godmother, and more fairy Godzilla. Eventually, he huffs out a breath.

“I’m gonna need the full names of all of the people who cacked it. Predicted and random. Plus tell me if you find anything weird with the bodies.” Charlie’s head shoots up so fast that he swears he can hear something crack.

“So you aren’t gonna narc me out to the missus?” Dean’s sigh is heavy.

“Dude, she would skin you. And besides, what you’re on looks the same thing we are. And if I’m right, then this goes a lot further than I thought.” He gives her the bare bones of what’s happened over the last-shit about 24 hours? It feels like weeks since he last saw Death.

Charlie asks to see the envelope. He pulls it out, taking all his energy to hand it to her. Fuck, he really hopes he isn’t turning out like smeagol. The balding lived-underground-for-2000-years look would not work for him. Plus, he hates raw fish. Hipsters can keep their damned sushi.

Charlie peers at the words on the envelope, holds it up to the light to see if she can peer through. She shakes it next to ear, and weighs it in her hands and squints at it like she can see through the paper. Its making him twitchy.

“Stop that, it’s not a fricken Christmas present. Can you, can you tell anything from the damn envelope or not?” She pulls her mouth sideways and frowns at the smeared print.

“I think I might be able to get out at least the next line. I downloaded this software ages ago… and I tweaked it so it recognizes ancient languages too, so it might be able to pick up what the seal says.” she turns back to the keys then, focussing on the centre screen. A grey box pops up, asking for a file. Charlie opens the top draw of her desk and pulls out a camera, snapping pictures of both sides of the envelope and flipping the memory card out. Dean watches as the file loads onto the program.

“It’ll take about four hours.”

“ _Four hours?_ I can’t wait around here for four hours.” Charlie rolls her eyes.

“So I’ll call you dumbass.” She says, prodding at the envelope again. “Whadda you think’s in this thing anyway?” Dean shrugs.

“Something important. Sounds like a watch maybe?”

 She hums thoughtfully. “Feels more like a ring to me.”

 Dean stiffens. Sure, he’d been referring to it as The One Ring in his head, but it hadn’t occurred to him that it could be so literal. Now he thinks about it, this whole fiasco is way too close to LOTR for his liking.

“That doesn’t explain the ticking though.” He says, his tone falsely calm. “And s’not Death’s horseman ring, cause he was wearing that.” This time, it’s Charlie who shrugs.

“Well it’s not like we can open it, so I’m not exactly going to start up a betting pool. Anything else I can help you with there, Frodo?” He grimaces, hoping the nickname doesn’t stick. Though he was hoping she wouldn’t notice the parallels at all; a futile wish given who he’s dealing with.

“Well… uh, Castiel...”

“You were wondering if professor sex hair out there is really what he says he is?” Did he have sex hair? Dean had been a little distracted by the massive wings… and the eyes. Because of all the staring. Weird, creepy, constant staring. Now _he’s_ staring. At Charlie. What were they talking about? Oh right, Cas.

“Uhm… ah, yeah.”

“As far as I can tell, the guy’s legit. I mean I’ve never seen an angel before so I’m not 100%, but he does have the wings for it and he just _feels_ kinda… holy.”

“Huh.” is all Dean gets out. Well fuck him sideways. A really life freaking angel.

“As for the Death Gods thing, I have never seen or heard of what you described to me, but I mean, it certainly _sounds_ like a Death God. I’ll ask around though, and I think I have some books that might help.” She moves to the bookshelves and starts to pick out books, seemingly at random. Dean doesn’t know how they have their books ordered, because from what he can see they’re alphabetized by neither author nor title, or arranged by colour or size and she chooses them from so many different places that it can’t be grouped by relevance. She puts them all in a box which she hands to him when it’s full, placing his envelope on top.

“Thanks.” Dean says, standing in front of the exit. He hesitates a second.

 “Y’know, you should tell Gilda. About the hunting, I mean.” Charlie’s expression darkens and he quickly adds, “Or not. Your choice.” Running a hand through his short hair, he breathes out a sigh.

“She’ll be pissed but… she finds out on her own, she’ll be extra pissed.” The red-head still doesn’t say anything, but at least she looks like she’s thinking now. He sighs again.

“Whatever. Just… at least find someone to hunt with.” She nods mutely, and Dean leaves.

* * *

 

Dean had meant to stay a while longer, talk to Madison maybe, but now he just wants to head back to his rotting apartment and try and figure out what’s going on. He still has to buy that cake, so he heads over to the cart and tells to others to wait outside, he’ll only be a minute.

Okay, it may take marginally longer than a minute to buy the small cupcake that’s still as big as the fairy herself but in his defence, that should not be long enough to lose an angel. Their search is frantic and annoyed, until Dean remembers how Castiel had stared at the dancers earlier. He finds the angel staring at a new couple dancing around the flames. This time, it’s a woman with cat ears and a cat tail being led by a man whose eyes glow a fluorescent green.

“Hello Dean.” Is all he says as the taller man stands beside him.

“Why’d you wander off? We thought you’d been led off into the woods by a wisp or something.”

The angel cocks his head and turns to look at Dean, an action that’s already weirdly familiar considering that he’s known the guy maybe 3 hours.

“I am not a child.” Dean’s cheeks colour.

“I know that man, I just-” he shifts the box from on arm to the other, running his free hand though his hair. “This is the first time you or hell, any other angel has even been rumoured to be on earth in hundreds of years. And you don’t really know how shit operates down here now.” Castiel continues to stare at him, brow furrowing a little and its making him feel awkward so Dean shifts his gaze first to his boots and then to the dancers. The man is lifting the woman into the air as he spins and her smile spreads wide right over her face.

“You’re worried.”

“I-fuck, yeah I guess? And I mean I don’t wanna fuck up whatever angelic quest buddy system you guys have got going on up there for whatever poor saps next. Not even sure why you’re helping me to be honest.”

“It is Gods will.”

“Yeah, but _why me?_ ”  It’s the question he’s never asked. What the hell is so great about him? Why was he the one that Death , and God as well apparently, decided to save, to help. From what he’s seen lately of his human life, he wasn’t exactly a saint. Hell, he probably didn’t even qualify as good. And that applies even less now. It’s the question he’s never asked.

“The lord works in-”

“If you say in mysterious ways, so help me I will kick your ass.” Cas holds his hands up in mock surrender, lowering them as he turns back to the dancers. They stand there is silence for a long moment.

“You are a good man, Dean.” Dean can’t help the snort that escapes him.

 No, he’s not.

“C’mon, let’s get out of here.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case you guys haven't guessed, I'm adding characters as they appear, partly due to making this up as I go along and partly to keep the element of surprise.  
> I hope there aren't too many mistakes in this, I did upload it at 2 in the morning so any proof reading I've done isn't exactly going to be perfect, and I'm too impatient for betaing so there's that.  
> BUT! I am finished school until February (which I'm already having weird dreams about, good god) so hopefully I'll keep this updated every week or two rather than once a month.


	7. The Death of a God

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> That same horrible feeling of overwhelming death that hit him in the alley rises. Dean falters for a moment, stumbling and Castiel almost walks into him.  
> “It’s here.” Tessa murmurs and Dean sees his own alarmed expression mirrored on her and Lisa. A cursory glance at the people around them shows that none of them have noticed, same as those humans this afternoon and there’ll be time to overanalyse that later but right now they have to leave.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Uhm so that part where I said update in a couple of weeks?  
> Yeah, sorry bout that.  
> This chapter is a little dark, which I totally didn't intend to happen.  
> Please tell me what you think!

They find Tessa and Lisa a few tents down, looking at a row of hanging crystals. Dean contemplates buying Tessa one, for sticking around and helping him with this whole damned clusterfuck, but god knows what kind of spells or enchantments the shady looking 12 year old, staring at them with these creepy light purple eyes and licking her lips with a tongue that is _way_ too long to be human, has put on her wares. The women turn away from the creepy kid’s death-crystals and Tessa smiles when she sees them.

“So you found our wayward angel.” She says as they approach.

“Yeah, he was staring into the bonfire all pensive like. Lucky I caught him, he looked about half a raven away from going all Edgar Allen Poe on us.” Dean claps the angel on the shoulder with a grin to the girls. Castiel looks to the man’s hand, then his face, his gaze doing that stupid soul dissecting thing it always does. Dean knows the angel can see he’s faking and the very idea makes him uncomfortable, the corners of his upturned mouth straining a little as he drops his hand and turns away with a call of “Let’s get outta here.”

The group is almost at the mouth of the clearing when that same horrible feeling of overwhelming death that hit him in the alley rises. Dean falters for a moment, stumbling and Castiel almost walks into him. The angel scowls at him for half a second, opens his mouth angrily but stops when he sees the look on Deans face.

“It’s here.” Tessa murmurs and Dean sees his own alarmed expression mirrored on her and Lisa. A cursory glance at the people around them shows that none of them have noticed, same as those humans this afternoon and there’ll be time to overanalyse that later but right now they have to leave.

“We gotta go.” He says, and no-one argues. They make their way quickly along the forest path, and out through the huge shiny wall of a portal back to Jimbo’s. Dean worries momentarily about Charlie, but the things seem to have a pretty one track mind, and that track doesn’t look like it’s got anything to do with the living. Well, the Living-Living. As opposed to the Living-Dead like him, which they seem to be very interested in.

The fairy isn’t there, which can never be a good sign, but Dean leaves the cake off to the right side of the portal-door so it doesn’t get trampled. The four relax a little as they make their way out of the overgrown maze; the imminent-death feeling is still kinda there but it’s an echo of the sensation that had overwhelmed them at the market. They make it all the way to the car, fit Castiel’s wings in with no less difficulty than the first time, and Dean starts the engine. The radio blasts into life when he turns the key, filling the car with the sound of AC/DC screeching out ‘ _Hells Bells’_.

He’s just pulling up the handbrake when it lands on the bonnet of the car. Dean definitely doesn’t scream, and if he does it’s a totally manly scream, and caused not by the creatures presence but by the huge scratches it makes in the Buick’s perfect paintjob (it’s a serious crime to do such a thing to a car this gorgeous after all, and the way its skull face is leaning in to peer through the windshield, this is only the start of what is looking to become a bad night for the Elektra.) Its jaw hinges open a little and it puffs a hot breath onto the window through its tiny sharkish teeth, fogging up his view. Dean’s out of the car a second later, and he’s not sure what he’s gonna do cause the thing kicked his ass before but that’s not important. What’s important is Tessa, who shouts his name with a mixture of fear, anger and exasperation as he opens his door, and Lisa, who’s sitting in the back seat wide eyed, hands gripping the seat in front of her with white knuckled ghost hands, and even Castiel, who’s door is open a split second after his, but is struggling to get his wings out of the confined space and yeah the dudes a badass, but he’s already saved Deans ass once today, so honestly Dean’s just repaying the favour, keeping all of them safe.

The thing turns its attention to him as he exits the car, its teeth chittering together in a way that would be real creepy if hadn’t seen weird ass Halloween decorations that do the exact same thing. The Halloween decorations hadn’t been 7 feet tall though, and as its head turns to him it jingles a little, drawing Deans attention to something he hadn’t noticed before; hundreds of silver bells, stitched onto the hems of the things cloak and braided into its hair. They must be a new addition, because they’re pretty obvious, shining brightly even in the dim moonlight and he sure as hell would have noticed them in full daylight, especially with the noise.

It’s jaw hinges wider, freakily snakish in how wide its face gapes and Dean barely dodges as the thing fucking _lunges_ for his throat like a rabid dog, rolls out of the way as its clawed feet leave the hood of the car with huge scar-like gouges, oh Jesus.  It leaps past him, almost colliding with a pile of scrap. Dean draws his knife and the iron stake. It’s gonna be a bitch and a half trying to gank this thing up close and personal, but his gun had done jack shit, so it’s the next logical option. He’s just not quite sure where to start, and it looks like something he’s going to have to figure out soon, because the fucker is already wheeling around, and damn those bells really are loud, probably due to the fact that _it’s charging straight at him like a bull **oh shit-**_

Dean dodges to the right just in time, and in a stroke of something akin to genius, swings his knife at the creature as it sails past. It slices the leg with a gross, kind of gooey noise, and though it appears to do little pain-wise, it does make a small dent in the creature’s weird, soft flesh, gouging a little window to its gross black bone, which, hey more damage than anything else so far. The thing keeps running even so, though it seems less intentional and more as if it’s built up too much momentum to stop

The others are out of the car now. Castiel is the first to reach him, feathers looking angrily ruffled and sticking up in the same way his hair is. His face is concentrated, a fierce, warrior-in-battle type of intensity freaking pulsing off of him as he grips the silver blade his hand with a practised hold. Tessa and Lisa aren’t far behind him, a shotgun gripped in Tessa’s hands. She looks about ready to clock Dean over the head with it.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” she hisses, and wow ok she must be pissed because he’s heard Tessa swear maybe 6 times in the long time he’s known her and it’s kinda hot but it’s also fucking terrifying.

“Aahm…”

“Oh, don’t answer that, I already know. You’re trying to play the hero like always.” Dean frowns, trying to remember what she’s talking about exactly. Ok, maybe he’s  dived in front of a _few_ unnecessary bullets… and then refused to rest and let it heal (hey what’s it gonna do, kill him?) and then there _was_ the time with the undead samurai… hmm, maybe he’s starting to see Tess’s point. But he’s not ‘trying to play the hero’. He’s just doing his job, but when he tells her as much, she’s even less impressed.

“Diving in front of something we haven’t identified but is probably a fucking-” (okay, 7) “- _Death God_ _is not your fucking job!_ ” It’s starting to look like if he doesn’t calm her down soon, he’s going to need to start counting on his toes as well as his fingers. Dean opens his mouth, planning on giving her his usual kind of speech, the perfect balance between joking cockiness about how he can’t let anyone steal his thunder, and veiled self-depreciation that he has down to a science, but before he can start spurting his trademark bullshit, everybody’s saved from the inappropriately timed slumber party by Castiel’s shout.

“Get down!”

Tessa and Lise comply immediately; Dean, not so much. The angel is still standing too, whirling his sword in fancy little circles as he stares down the beast, which has turned back to them and is rapidly gaining on the four. Dean has time to look jealously down at his own little demon knife, which wow really not a good time for whatever (unnecessary) pseudo size envy that is, before the creatures gnashing jowls are upon them. Its teeth nip at Castiel’s wings, quick and cat-like; it’d look like a warning bite if the thing didn’t have more teeth than a great white-grizzly bear hybrid. He deflects the attack using a swift blow with the butt of his sword to the things temple. Its head snaps away with a crack, white hair and streaming bells flying. A large piece of bleach white bone flies off to the side. Like Deans significantly less impressive cut on the things leg, it doesn’t seem to notice the damage. Raising its head once again it stares Dean down with those blood red flames as if it’s just remembered his presence. He has to duck and roll to evade it as it lunges forward once again, this time its attention focussed solely on him, the things malicious intent roiling off it in waves, same as its death-feel and, Dean notices for the first time as the wind turns, the smell of rotting flesh. Just like the bells, now that he’s noticed the stench, it’s impossible to un-notice, and he finds himself holding his breath even as he swings the stake up under its jaw. Iron pierces through the thin layer of flesh under its chin, into its open mouth. Dean can see it, which is pretty awesome. However, it does nothing to hinder the creatures snapping teeth and he finds himself in some fucked up tug-of-war, trying to steer the monsters head away from his own throat. And losing. He finds him worrying about just how much deader a dead guy can get if a Death-God takes off his head and it’s starting to look like he might find out sooner rather than later. It’s disgusting corpse-y breath is puffing waaaay too close to his face (which, by the way, invest in a breath mint or twenty) and he’s just starting to regret all those stacks and stacks of Hail Mary’s he’s surely racked up left undone, but eh, it was a good time anyway, when a huge crack and the smell of gunpowder fills the air. The bullet glances off of the undamaged side of the creatures head, and even though it hardly makes a mark on the bone the things whole head jerks to the side, away from Dean, ripping the stake from his hands

Dean rolls away from it this time, manages to scramble out before it recovers. It turns to Tessa now, and though its attention isn’t the same mindless focus as it was for Dean, it seems _pissed._ She seems to notice too, because she starts to run, continuing to fire as she does so. Lisa is sticking close to her, has obviously figured out that out that Tess the least likely of the three to dive headfirst into a something she couldn’t handle. But now the motherfucker is chasing the pair, and Lisa is looks like she's having some trouble. She’s lagging behind Tessa, visibly straining. Castiel is at Dean’s side now, still doing that twirly thing with his sword, the show-off. The angels eyes track the creature like _he’s_ the predator, which, to be honest, is fucking terrifying but also weirdly attractive. Dean forces his eyes away from the other man, making his way around the back of Elektra. The trunk is already open, assumably Tessa’s doing and he rummages through the mess of wires and weapons and week old fast food trash until he finds it.

The hatchet isn’t exactly in the best state; the handle has already been replaced a few times and it looks almost worn again. The head of the axe itself is nothing fancy, decently sharp but hardly Andúril sharp and decided not clean, still covered in some poor bastard or another’s blood. It does the job though and it’s been dipped in silver for good measure. When he returns to Castiel the angel merely raises an eyebrow at it before flicking his eyes back to their enemy.  Before Dean can stutter out a weak argument in the axes defence, the angel has launched himself forward, bolting towards the monster like a jackass. Dean follows him with a huff.

The creature ignores them. Tessa has long since stopped shooting, shotgun still gripped in one hand as she sprints her undead ass off. Lise is looking even worse for wear than she had earlier though and she trips while Castiel and Dean are still too far away with their decidedly not long-range weapons (hindsight’s a bitch). The thing is over her in a second, leaning over the collapsed ghost even as she struggles to her feet. It pins her down with one taloned hand, face drawing closer and suddenly Castiel is gliding, literally gliding with his wings, so fast he’s almost a blur and then he’s between them. Dean still ups his pace, urged on with panic and adrenaline, and it’s just as well because despite Cas’ strike across the creatures face it bats him aside with its free hand as if he’s nothing. The angel is sent flying, wings and all.

Dean slips into his place, swinging the hatchet and connecting with the arm holding Lisa down. He connects a little off of his original chip so it while does cause some damage, the nasty ass claw stays firmly attached. The bone now has a considerable dent in it though which would probably matter more if it did something to stop the fucking demon skill now shoving its stupid ass teeth in his face. He can still see the iron hanging ‘round in the things face, like the words worst tongue piercing (or, y’know would be if the fucker had a tongue).  It's giving him ideas, and not the sexy kind that tongue piercings normally give him. Dean hefts his axe up, clocking it in the bottom of the jaw with the square back of the hatchet head. It nails the stake up into its head by a few inches. Dean waits half a second, ready for a triumphant fist pump at the creature’s demise.

Nothing happens.

Shit. If anything it’s angrier now, and Dean has to jump over a sweep of its free arm like this is one of Charlie’s fucking video games. But because he’s an idiot who’s already used up his idea quota for at least the next week, all there’s left to do is try again. He brings the axe up again, hard and fast before it can backhand him away. This time the iron hits home, driving all the way into its face, and the monster freezes. Dean takes this as an opportunity to spin around and swing the sharpened side of the hatchet into the slash on its arm. The bone snaps clean in two, arm breaking right off.

It comes back to life, throws its head back and **_screams._**

The iron in its jaw vibrates so hard at the sound that it falls out, landing on the ground with a clatter and Lisa struggles to her feet with a traumatised look as the now severed hand collapses. The noise coming out of the beast’s mouth is unholy shrieking of the worst kind, and Dean grimaces at it, resisting the urge to cover his ears. He’s so concentrated this, in fact, that he misses the flying arm stub racing at his face.

He doesn’t block it, wouldn’t be able to even if he noticed it before it hit him. As it is, he doesn’t see it until after it fucking _jabs_ him in the chest, sending him flying back about 30 feet. He lies in the dirt where he lands, groaning pitifully.

“Dean!”

There’s a twinge in his chest as he sits up (two, three twinges actually. Probably broken ribs. Fun) at Cas’ shout. The angel’s wings are caught in the springs of a rusty mattress, tangled painfully in the frame. But Castiel obviously hadn’t meant to get Deans help for him. While his wings are obviously preoccupied, his eyes and arms are pointed to Lisa once more.

She’s running again, doing the best she can but she’s looking steadily more terrible, which for a dead girl is saying something. The creature is frenzied now, and though it limps on its remaining legs, its speed is still more than a match for the weakened ghost. It’s looming over her before Dean can even struggle to his feet, and in the time it takes for him to get even a few steps closer it’s too late. He screams her name as it closes its teeth around her neck, ripping it free from her shoulders with a jerk and if they were fighting anything else he’d say it was impossible, but the ghost girl is dead. Er. The fucking bastard swallows her skull down, and her blood is still on its teeth as it reaches down and pulls the rest of her body into its mouth too, gulps it down whole like a snake. Dean’s steps falter before he speeds up two fold, even though it’s too late. She might have not known him but he had seen her entire life, even if it was all mixed in with hundreds of others. He didn’t need the exact details of her life to know that she was a damn good person and now she would never get back to heaven. She was gone. Nothing. Poof.

There’s no real time to mourn though, because as soon as Lisa’s corpse has slid down its gullet, its turned in search of its next victim, not looker for any of them in particular, merely searching for whoever is closest. Its eyes land on Tessa and Dean’s heart drops to his stomach. She might me less vulnerable than Lise (him and Cas and Tessa are all fighters, but Lisa is…was a civie) but she’s still almost _human_ , all breakable bones and soft skin, and if it what it did to her the first time was bad then this time will be so much worse. His knees lock a little at the thought, making him stumble forward. Cas is still trapped in that goddamn mattress, but he’s struggling against it more frantically, mouth turned in a grimace as the rusted springs rip against his wings. Tessa hasn’t noticed it’s fixation on her yet, leaning over and panting with a hand on one knee. The other still grips that shotgun and Dean shouts her name as he and the creature rush towards her from opposing sides.

It might have less functioning limbs but the things strides are at least double Deans and Tessa spins around horrified as it approaches. She raises the gun as he increases his speed, firing off a shot. It strikes the bastard between the eyes but the damage is once again minimal and the gun is swatted from her hands seconds later by its remaining hand. The gun clatters away, barrel slightly twisted by the impact of the shove and the monster leans in, looming closer over Tess. When she stumbles away from it she falls and it plants its stub of a wrist on her ankle. She can’t run but it doesn’t stop her from swinging a fist towards the place where its nose should be. The weird little stick of bone parting the hole in two snaps off and clatters inside the skull, but once again the creature shows less than no reaction other than to reach up and plant its real hand across her chest, claws piercing Tessa’s arm and midriff. She grits her teeth, struggling despite the obvious pain of her wounds as its ugly face advances. Dean fights to picks up his pace, even though he’s already going as fast as he can, overwhelmed with _panic_ which runs into blinding rage as it leans in, breathing over her neck and then something inside his chest just **_snaps._**

It flows out from between his shoulder blades, down his arms, fills his eyes and streams down his cheeks, like smoke and water and lightning all at once, pure and black and liquid.

“ ** _Stop._** ”

_‘ **Sam!** ’_

The words overlay themselves, both flowing from his mouth at once but in different universes because as impossible as it seems he’s in two places at once. The first pours out of his mouth in a booming, thick tone, unmistakably his own voice but older and richer, all sharp, commanding anger. The second is in his head or his past or both and it’s full of strain and panic and fear, so much fear.

He watches, unable to control either of his selves. In the here and now the monster freezes at his words, the word _master_ ringing through his skull. In the past he clutches his brother’s unresponsive body, shaking his shoulders in terror _Sam? Sammy? C’mon man, it’s not even that bad. It’s not bad. We’ll patch you up; you’ll be okay, right? I’ll take care of you. That’s what big brothers do for their pain in the ass little brothers, right Sam? Sam?!_

In the present he raises his arm and the lightning-water-smoke flows off of his arm and runs across the time ground and up the monster. It screams when the black touches it, louder and more piercing and about 60 billion times more pained than when he severed its arm. Steam rolls off the spots it makes contact with.

“ ** _Who sent you?_** ” He asks it but all it does is sputter. He tightens his fist and the black wraps tighter, squeezing it.

“ ** _WHO SENT YOU._** ” It cries out, and the words take form in his head; _Mother! Mother! Izanami-no-Mikoto_. As soon as he hears the name, he can _feel_ her claws in the thing, controlling everything it does like a damn puppet master.

_Sam? Oh god, Sammy, no, no, no!_

The blackness retracts from the monster as it sobs even as he does the same, clinging to his brother. It looks relieved, stands awaiting his command. He could let it live. It obviously isn’t killing of its own free will. He stares at it a moment and it stares back, big flame eyes looking at him like a deranged puppy. Castiel’s words from earlier play in his head. _You’re a good man, Dean._

Then he remembers Lisa.

His fingers tighten around the hatchet, and the darkness wraps around it too, extending the handle and lengthening the blade into a scythe. It’s nothing like Deaths, almost a Halloween parody of his one but the black hardens like obsidian and Dean can feel the power pulsing through his palms.

It goes through the creature like butter. Dean slices it with vicious abandon and doesn’t stop until it’s as good as bloody mulch, his own screams for a dying brother echoing through his skull.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oops. So yeah, that happened.  
> Don't worry too bad though, it turns out alright. I think.  
> Also, if any of you were wondering, which I'm sure you weren't, I'm on tumblr:  
> whoneedssanityihavecake.tumblr.com


	8. Burgers Bring Friends Together

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one's a bit filler-y... or is it?  
> Enjoy!

The power sucks back inside him, settling in his bones in as though it had never left. Dean can’t even feel the difference between before and after the dam broke, and that’s almost as scary as the wasteland of mess around him. He helps Tessa up from where she had sat in dismay as he tore the helpless creature apart.

“Y’okay?” his voice is gravellier than usual. Tessa’s reply is a small noise that he mistakes for pain until it spirals into gasps of hysterical laughter. That only lasts about 10 seconds before it tapers out into sobs and she throws her arms around his neck, crying into his blood covered skin. She clings to him, tears mixing with the drying gore covering every inch of him and he slowly wraps his arms around her back, allowing himself to pretend for a moment that he isn’t the monster here. It’s her that breaks it, pulling back slowly and he watches as she reins all of her emotions back into stoic composure.

“Dean.” She says, and it’s her Serious Talk Tone, but Dean doesn’t do heart to hearts and he’s really not in the mood for her to try, so he pretends not to hear as he mumbles an excuse under his breathe, ignores the look she gives him and the kick in the gut feeling that accompanies it.

 The weight of the last 24 hours, along with the knowledge that they have no idea what they’re doing or what’s to come crashed down on him, leaving him weary but he treks his way over to Castiel anyway, despite the expression of confused-re-evaluation that stare is fixed with and the way it makes him feel like someone’s poured fire ants under his skin. All that insistent thrashing the angel had been doing has got him well and truly tangled, and his attempts to get free only look to be making it worse, if that’s even possible. Dean slaps the hands reaching around blindly away and starts to adjust the feathers, twisting the springs out of the way. The angel stiffens when fingers first meet the wings before calming. In spite of being covered in intestine and rotting flesh, the weight of his kill pressing against him, and the hollow feeling in his stomach, he can’t help joking.

“Get stuck to beds like this often?” The slight tilt of Castiel’s head is enough to let him know he’s making that confused, frowny expression again, the one that makes him look less like warrior of god and more like a tiny baby owl, and Dean finds with surprise, a chuckle slipping between his lips, even in the face of all the other shit. Cas’ head turns towards him a little at the sound, and the guilt of the noise kills the laughter on his lips.

“Don’t worry about it man.” The angel turns back to the thousand-yard stare he had been giving the scrap piles around them. The two are silent for a long moment, Dean picking feathers out of springs, before Castiel speaks,

“I wasn’t aware you were able to do that.”

Jesus Christ. Does everyone on this fucking battlefield other than him want to talk about their fweelings? Next thing you know, what’s left of the creatures mask will be popping up and asking him about his _emotions_.

“Yeah, that makes two of us. Stay still Cas, I don’t wanna rip out any feathers.” He adds when Castiel means to turn, taking the ensuing silence as the angel realising that no, this is not something he wants to talk about. Dean realises too late that the nickname he hadn’t even noticed he’d given the other man had slipped out in his nervousness. He rushes to unwind the wings after that, slicing his hands on a few of the spring in his haste, before leaving Cas with an awkward clap on the shoulder and a mumbled “There ya go.”

He bandages and disinfects Tessa just as impatiently, childishly shushing her every time she tries to Talk To Him. Castiel manages to struggle into the backseat on his own, efforts made easier by practise and the new space on the left side previously filled by Lisa, and if that doesn’t just turn Deans gut. When he and Tess climb into the front, he cranks the volume on the radio to deafening, as clear a sign for ‘do not talk to me’ as he can get without literally hanging one around his neck, or possibly wearing writing it on his forehead.

They’ve only been on the road for 10 minutes when Castiel goes “I need to leave.” and disappears in a rustle of feathers before Dean can even sputter-out the word “what?”

He huffs out a breath at the angels antics and goes back to his driving. Or at least he intends to. Tessa seems to have other plans. Her hand reaches for the dial, turning it right down.

“Dean-” she starts but his hand flicks out and cranks the volume. She frowns and flips it back down.

They continue like this for some time, Dean childishly refusing to listen to her by drowning her out, Tessa unwaveringly determined to make him talk about Things, until finally she hits the off button. The two of them sit in silence for a while, before Dean reaches for the button, almost hesitantly.

“I swear to God, if your hand so much as brushes that I will rip it off.” Tessa growls at him, swatting his wrist. He scowls in return but moves his hand back to the steering wheel, even as he says

“The button or m’ hand?”

“Stop acting like a petulant 12 year old or you’ll find out.” he makes a wheezy almost laugh noise, though it does little to ease the tension lining his shoulders.

“What happened back there?” the next sound Dean makes can be described as self-depreciating at best.

“Ya gonna have to be more specific about that, Tess.” She stares at him, unimpressed until he caves and adds,

“You know as much as I do. I… I don’t know, fuck.” Tessa lays a hand on his arm, her voice gentle in a way that has his shoulders tensing up. He doesn’t want to be pitied.

“Lisa… she wasn’t your fault.”

“Really? Because I recall you telling me, first time I fucked up; ‘They’re your responsibility. You have to move their sprits to the other-side, wherever that maybe.’”

“Dean-”

“Admit it Tess. It was my fault she was there, and she died or, ugh, _whatever the fuck that was_ , and I took it out on something that was being danced around like a fucking puppet by whoever has taken Death out.”

Tessa makes a noise of protest, but Deans hand flicks out and switches the radio back on, blaring the volume before she can turn her disagreement into a coherent sentence. This time she doesn’t turn it off, leaving him to brood and mope like the moody asshole he is. They don’t speak the whole way back.

* * *

 

As soon as they get back, Dean heads right for the shower. The blood is caked to his skin; it had been easier to throw down a towel he’d found buried at the bottom of the trunk that was barely cleaner than he was, than to try and actually get rid of the stuff. The water pressure is shit and the temperature flicks between lukewarm and face-melting, but it’s good enough to get rid of the red staining his skin even if it takes him longer than he’d like. He still won’t let him think about today, consciously build a wall around any emotional responses he has, and shoving any memories in there for good measure. Wondering about his past life has never been high on his to do list, and finding out more hasn’t changed that. Dean rests his head against the wall. He doesn’t have expectations about Living Dean, doesn’t want them. But sometimes he can’t help it. He knows he probably wasn’t some great guy who like, rescued orphans from burning buildings and went to church and helped old women cross the road; dying couldn’t change anyone’s personality that much. Still, did he live well? Did he have a family? There was Sam but what about a wife? Kids? Would he have been a good father, a good person? Or was he a douche?

Would it be worse if his life had sucked and he got a second chance, or if he had been happy and lost that forever?

The water goes cold and he comes to his senses, shoving all of that crap back in to the lockbox at the back of his mind. It wouldn’t change jack shit thinking about it. And he had the perfect way to make sure he _stopped_ thinking about it.

Drying himself and dressing in a pair of jeans off of the floor (they had considerably less blood on them than the ones he had been wearing before, even if they had more tears), he rifles through the pockets of his bloodied jacket. The envelope was in the box with the books on the table, and he really should start on the research but not tonight. He pulled out his keys and his black book, sliding both into his jeans pockets as well as his phone. Charlie could ring at any time – he knows from past experience how loose an interpretation 4 hours was with her. He walks into the main room topless and grabs a fairly clean looking Led Zeppelin shirt from beside his mattress. Tessa looks up from her perch on the couch but he shot her down with a look as soon as she opens her mouth. She purses her lips but goes back to the tv. It had apparently fixed itself after Castiel left, and now it’s playing an old rerun of _Dr Sexy M.D._. It’s one of his favourite episodes; the one where Doctor Piccolo finally confronts her twin brother on his affair with a patient at the hospital, in the middle of performing a ground breaking neurological surgery that saves said patients life. He almost wants to stay and watch it, but he knows that means the third degree from Tessa again, and he won’t even be able to focus on Doctor Piccolo’s moral and physical struggle to save the man ruining her best friend and brothers marriage.

“’m goin out.” Dean grumbles, pulling on his thin coat and making his way to the door.

“Salt the door behind me. And don’t wait up.”

* * *

 

The chick in front of him is super-hot, moderately drunk and totally into him. And she is boring his brains out.

Normally, Dean doesn’t mind vapid. He believes you shouldn’t discriminate against someone’s sex appeal just because they’re intelligence isn’t exactly they’re strongest suit. This shouldn’t be a problem. She’s smoking hot, with dark hair and a kinda round face with a pointy chin, and these huge luminous grey eyes surrounded by slightly smudged black makeup.

But something about Kirsten or Kristy or whatever the hell her name is that’s making him want to bash his head against the bar. Maybe it’s because she looks kinda like Tessa. Don’t get him wrong, Tessa is _hot_ , but despite all his flirting with her, he knows they’re better off without the whole sexy times thing throwing spanners in places no-one wants them.

He downs the last of his drink and gestures the bartender over, upping his game from 2 fingers of whisky to 3 _. Get you head in there, man,_ says a voice in his brain that sounds disturbingly like Charlie imitating Bones. He’d even driven, optimistic of a car hook-up, but the chances of that happening were rapidly decreasing, and not even due to lack of interest, from the other party at least. He breathes a sigh when his phone rings, and if it’s actually one of relief then Kimmy doesn’t need to know.

“Sorry, I gotta take this.” He says with a smile he hopes comes off as apologetic. It must work, because she frowns and nods quickly and for an excessively long time.

“Oh, yeah sure, no problem, go ahead.” Dean shoots her a thankful grin as he pulls out his phone.

“Hello?”

“Hey there brother.” A voice that is decidedly too deep to be Charlie, though significantly more strained, drawls.

“Benny? Hey man, I haven’t heard from you in ages! What’s up?”

“I’m in a bit of a pickle, and I’m runnin’ low on supplies if you know what I mean.” Dean does.

“You want me to go and grab them for you?”

“It would be much appreciated brother.”

“You home?”

“Yeah, I’m home. You know where the key is.”

“Alright, I’ll be there in 20. Bye.”

“Thanks Dean.”

Kristine is pouting at him around the straw in her purple drink as he slips the phone back in his pocket.

“You have to go?” She whines.

“Yeah, my buddy needs me to go pick up his meds. They’re real important. I wouldn’t leave otherwise.” Liar.

Her eyes widen and she nods understandingly. “I get it. My cousin has, like, epilepsy , and if she doesn’t take her pills she flips out all the time and has like these fits, it’s really scary.” He smiles and slides off the bar stool. Just as he turns to leave, he feels her hand on his arm. When he turns back to look at her, she’s scribbling frantically with her free hand.

“Here.” She says with a megawatt smile, pushing a slightly stained napkin into his palm. He grins and slips it into his pocket with a wink.  Once he’s inside his car, he pulls it out again out of curiosity.

_Call me, XXX-XXXX_

Abigail. Obviously.

Man, Benny had saved him if he couldn’t even keep that in his head.

He crumples the piece of paper and throws it in the foot well of the passenger side.

* * *

 

It had only taken him a few minutes to go invisible man and ‘port into the hospital to grab the cooler of expired blood (and wasn’t that kinda creepy? Like they were going on some weird undead-bloodsucker picnic or something) that some volunteer or another Benny had on tap had left out for them. Now he was pulled up in front of the Heart of Saint Peter church.

The church had been abandoned in the 1870’s, after two of the nuns had gone insane and gone around murdering people and hiding them in the underground cellar. They’d later buried the bodies in the graves of other people. Neither was discovered until the pastor tortured and murdered the entire congregation one Sunday, and then hung himself from the rafters. Since then it had been used as a crack house, an ironic, nun-themed brothel, a hostel (that fell once again into the pattern of psychosis, when the chef got angry about being underpaid, understaffed and underappreciated and started to feed the guests human flesh) and the scene of one too many gun fights, knife fights and fist fights. All in all, whatever had been holy about the grounds was now well and truly desecrated.

Which made it the perfect home for a vampire.

From the outside it looked like a normal abandoned church, and normal abandoned churches were still consecrated. So of course, it was the last place any other vamps or passing hunters would look. Non-locals didn’t know the stories, being a point of great shame in the community, and Benny made an effort not to draw attention to himself.  And not to let any other vampires that rolled in to make a mess.

Dean climbs out of the Elektra with the chiller, wincing at her new pock marks on the hood and goes around the back. Most of Saint Peter’s had been covered in a thick wall of ivy and jasmine, but the back door to the cellar is cut away, lain over with branches and sticks. Theoretically, Dean could just teleport inside. He’s done it once or twice, to scare Benny, though the undead bastard could always smell him. But when he can help it, he tries to keep to doing things normally.

The key has been rammed between the cracks in one of the stone bricks making up the back wall, hidden behind the vines. He tugs it out, pulls the branches away from the door and slots the key in. Benny had replaced it just after he had moved in, changing what had previously been a rusted padlock and chain to an inbuilt lock in the door itself, complex enough that any would be lock pickers would wake the vampire with their incessant clicking before they got anywhere. A twist of his wrist has the lock flipping into place and a simple turn of the handle has the doors swinging inwards with a clang. He slips the key back in the wall and descends.

Dean closes and locks the doors behind him, heading into the darkness at the bottom. He realises once again how late it is; any time spent in the fairy-world translated hours to minutes, but with the fight, the corresponding clean up and the drive home, Dean had hit the bar at almost 2. Odd it had even been open…

A faint scuffling noise snaps him back out of his head. He makes his way down the short corridor carefully. The door at the end is propped open slightly, and as he walks he notices a weird sticking noise; the ground is tacky with a thin trail of half dried blood.

Dean pushes the door inwards uneasily, fingers wishing for the guns and knives in his car. It opens to Benny’s kitchen. It was a strange thing for a vampire to have, but given how good a cook the guy is, Dean sure ain’t complaining. The trail leads around the island counter.

“Benny?”

A faint wheeze.

“‘m over here, brother.”

Benny is pale when Dean finds him, skin shiny with blood and sweat. His pupils are dilated almost beyond the iris and his fangs are out. Dean whistles.

“Boy, you look worse than I did an hour ago.” Benny looks at him.

“I’ll tell you later.”

Dean cracks the lid off of the cooler and pulls out a bag of B-. Benny’s hand trembles as he reaches for it, then so fast if Dean was fully human he’d miss it, the vampires fingers shoot out and clamp around the bag, snatching it away. He pulls it to his mouth and bites down so viciously that blood starts to run down his chin. When the bag is empty, he pops it off his teeth and licks the remaining blood off his face. It takes a couple more bags before he can stand, and a few more after that before he can manage to tell Dean what happened. Apparently a vamp had rolled in specifically looking for him. The guy started making obvious kills, leading a huge bloody trail to draw Benny out to defend his territory. Where Benny had expected one, two at most, he had found half a dozen. He’d taken them down, with some difficulty. The most interesting part of his story though, was when he’d gone to wack off the head off the leader…

“Son of a gun leaned into me, and whispered all sinister-like ‘ _Hail the mother of the dead._ ’” Benny shakes his head. “Now, I don’t know what that means, but it sure as hell don’t sound good.”

“No,” Dean agrees, “It doesn’t.”

Now its Deans turn to tell stories. He’s already given this spiel to Charlie, but with her he didn’t have to describe what it felt like to be overtaken by power that felt more like a part of him than his own arms and legs. If he edits some of the stuff out along the way then so be it. Just as he’s getting to the part with- with Lisa, Benny turns to his fridge and getting out stuff for burgers. It’s as close to comforting as he’ll get, and honestly it’s the best way to go about it in Dean’s opinion; just feed him and let him wallow in his ‘man-pain’ as Tessa has deemed it.

He’s moved on to his god awful would-be hookup by the time Benny plates up two burgers. Dean’s stomach grumbles as soon as the smell hits his nose and he shoves as much as of it into his face as he can, humming happily around his fully mouthful. Benny chuckles at him and takes a bite of his own extra rare burger.

“So,” the vampire says around his food, “you think my thing is related to your thing?”

“What, the hot chick whose pants I didn’t want into thing?”

“No, the mummies little death monster thing.”

“Oh.” Dean pauses to chew. “Maybe.”

They finish in silence, and Dean licks his fingers clean when he’s done, sighing in contentment.

“I guess I better leave before I slip into a food coma.” Benny chuckles at him again.

“Yeah, that’s probably for the best brother. Here, take this.” He gets up and grabs a plastic box.

“I still can’t get over the fact that you own Tupperware.” Benny ignores him, shaking his head.

“I made a couple extra, for Tessa and your angel friend.” His eyes narrow as Dean gets a hungry look on his face and reaches for the container, only to have it tugged out of reach.

“This better get to them, Dean. I mean it.” Dean rolls his eyes and the Cajun finally hands the box over.

“I put some extra pie in there too.” Benny adds, not missing the way Dean’s head snaps up at the word pie.

“Who the hell has extra pie?”

“I’ve been playing with the recipe.”

“What kind is it?”

“You’ll just have to wait and see. Share it. And don’t eat and drive. Now is not a good time to wait for you to heal from a car crash.” Dean grumbles his assent, and something about Benny being a harried old woman. The vampire just claps him on the shoulder, and watches as Dean leaves, the trap door clanging shut behind him.

* * *

 

It takes 90% of Dean’s concentration not to spend the entire drive staring longingly at the container riding shotgun, or to pull over and remove the source of the problem. The last 10% is losing pretty fast, and he’s finding it harder and harder to keep his eyes on the road for longer than 20 seconds. He’s just counted 19 when the sound of feathers fills the car, and his head jerks to the right so fast his neck almost snaps clean off his shoulders, swerving into the other lane, which luckily is empty at 4.30 in the morning or whatever godforsaken hour it is.

“Hello Dean.”

“Jesus, fuck Cas. You scared the shit out of me.”

Castiel ignores him, sitting in the passenger seat with his wings draped over the back of the seat ans its previous occupant in his lap and staring out of the windscreen with an unnecessarily intense expression, considering there isn’t anything is front of them but empty road. Dean huffs out a breath.

“Where’d you go before?”

“Heaven.” Dean raises an eyebrow.

“Gonna go with why?”

“Research. And I had to talk to my superiors.”

“O-kay. Find anything?”

“I may have but… it is beyond my level of … clearance as you say.” Well that’s about as helpful as an empty gun. They lapse back into silence, and even though Dean keeps glancing to the side just as often as before, Cas doesn’t move his eyes from the asphalt flying towards them.

“You pissed at me or something?” Castiel finally looks at him.

“No.”

“Is it the Cas thing then, or what, cause you’re acting real weird like.” The angel looks to his hands like they hold the answers to the universe, and who knows, they might, silent for a long moment and Dean sighs, ready to give up; who cares if the damned angel hates him? Angels are dicks. Everyone knows that.

“I dislike your activities outside of work. However, I will not allow this to affect my behaviour as a-”

“Wait, what?” A lot of things come to mind that might offend Castiel’s delicate sensibilities, but heaven wouldn’t have sent him in the first place if Dean’s drinking and one night stands were enough to affect Cas that much, would they?

“Your… er … outside dealings from work.” It takes a moment to get what Castiel is implying, and honestly, it’s offensive. Racist even.

“You think I’m _freelancing?!_ ” Cas looks at him, eyes back to wide and confused.

“Aren’t you?”

“ ** _NO._** ” Castiel pauses.

“But at the fairy market, your friend Charlie said…” It all falls into place and Dean can’t help but bark out a laugh. He quickly dissolves into bouts of snorting laughter that almost has him crashing the car.

“Dude, no.” another snort. “Literally the exact opposite.” Castiel still looks confused to the extreme, which makes Dean laugh harder. When he finally gets himself under control, he explains, pulling over to the side of the road.

“I work for Death, to track down those bastards and fix whatever they’ve fucked up. That’s how I met Charlie, and now sometimes she helps me.” Cas’ eyes widen even more and realisation graces his features, breathing out “ _oh._ ” Dean grins.

“Yeah, oh.” Embarrassment quickly floods in and it’s the most emotive Dean’s seen him yet. He can’t help another short laugh from escaping his lips.

“Dean, I’m sorr-” Dean waves it away.

“Nah, don’t worry about it. Makes up for me thinking you were a dick.” Cas does the bird head thing again, and there he is, back to the normal weirdo he usually is.

“You-”

“You heard some of the lore we have on you guys? All assholes. Well,” he amends, flushing a little. “not _actually_ all, but honestly, you read that shit you would not be surprised.” Castiel’s lip quirks a little at that but he lets it go.

They sit there for a moment in a more comfortable silence, before Dean has to ask.

“So, the Cas thing… that’s cool?”

“Of course. I have been given many names over my life time.” He pauses a little, long enough for Dean to accept that with a nod and turn back to the sky in front of them.

“Of all of them I have been given… I quite like it.” Dean smiles.

“Good to know Cas.”

The sky is starting to lighten as the sun rises. It’s a little gay, honestly, but other than that, pretty fucking pleasant. Until,

“Tell me about what happened earlier.” Dean groans. No. Not this again.

“What part exactly?” Dean knows what part. He’s just dragging this out, hoping that angels turn into stone when the sun rises, like the trolls in the hobbit. It’s probably not even remotely true, but Dean can hope.

“The part where the death of one comrade, and the looming death of another provoked a reaction in you so strong that you eradicated a god of death.” Ok, the little shit totally did that on purpose.

“Why does everyone and their grandmother want me to talk about my feelings.”

“Have you?”

“Have I what?”

“Talked about them.”

“Them what?”

“Dean.” The man sighs, rubs his hands across the stubble on his cheeks, plays with the idea of slamming his head into the steering wheel.

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Do I look like a teenage girl to you? What’s next, we sit around and braid my hair, and paint your nails, and talk about cute boys?” A long pause.

“Do you want to talk about cute boys, Dean?” With anyone else, he’d say they were teasing, but Cas sounds genuinely worried, not about Dean, but his own abilities as Someone To Talk To About Boys. Dean still sighs, even if he kind of wants to laugh again.

“No Cas, I do not want to talk about cute boys.” The sun is getting higher, staining the sky with orange and pink. Neither of them speak, and Dean is happy to leave it that way. Watching the sunrise is enough without talking about emotions. Cas apparently disagrees.

“Dean, what you did was the closest thing I have ever seen to an angel physically controlling their own grace. Do you know the only angels who can even came close it? Archangels.” He continues before Dean can interrupt again. “And even then, it wasn’t the same. You are incredibly powerful, and if the source of that power lies in your emotions, then perhaps you should not be so flippant about having them.”

Dean sit silently for a moment before he says the only thing that comes to mind. He doesn’t use it nearly enough, but when he does it counts.

“Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.”

The sun is still coming up, purple adding the mix as it gets higher. Dean tries to get Cas to eat his burger to make it less weird and coupley, but the angel is less than willing (“I do not require food, Dean.” “So? Neither do I. Just eat it.” “I do not think-” “When in Rome Cas.” “We are not in Rome.” “Just shut up and eat the damn thing.”) It’s hard for a moment to be romantic when one person –or both, he thinks as he picks out a piece of pie– is shovelling food into their face. He’s right about that at least. The moans Cas is making as he eats are definitely not romantic. When he finally comes up for air, he grins, full out _grins,_ at the burger in his hands and says, “These make me very happy.”

“Yeah, I can tell.”

Dean distracts himself from Cas’ food-sex noises by making some of his own, and between the bubbles of rhubarb-strawberry pie heaven, he thinks that just like Reapers aren’t always freelancers, it’s good that not all angels are dicks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My Tumblr: whoneedssanityihavecake.tumblr.com  
> The answer to a question no one asked :P  
> As usual, I'll edit this when it is not 1 in the morning.


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